REDUCE Act

Mr. Speaker, I thank the manager of this legislation, the cosponsors, Mr. Clyburn, and so many others who have been part of this historic legislation for their leadership on it.

Mr. Speaker, I rise as a member of the bipartisan Congressional HBCU Caucus and as an original cosponsor of H.R. 1135.

H.R. 1135 would authorize the appropriation of millions of dollars from 2018 through 2024 to the Historic Preservation Fund to provide assistance for the restoration and preservation of historic structures at Historically Black Colleges and Universities.

Let me indicate that this has been a long journey. The reauthorization is very special and emotional to many of us. As many of us know, Historically Black Colleges and Universities came at the wake of the ending of slavery and were a place of refuge for so many students.

I am reminded of those individuals who, as freed slaves, told stories of walking miles to be able to get to a school like Fisk University or to a school for so many in North Carolina and South Carolina or all throughout the South. They were great refuges for individuals who wanted a better life.

It is important to note that in the 1980s, the National Park Service awarded more than $65 million. These grants require you to cover 30 percent of the project. So it is not a handout. It is a hand-up. It is preserving the history of this great Nation.

I am very grateful to the Congressional Black Caucus. When the question is asked, ``What is the Congressional Black Caucus and what do we do,'' I will say without shame that we are the conscience of this Nation and we recognize that we have a responsibility to protect the vulnerable things of this Nation, whether it be people or things.

So the idea was to make sure that not only students have a brilliant education, but those who would seek knowledge will be able to come to the campuses of these Historically Black Colleges and Universities.

I happen to represent two State schools: Texas Southern University and Prairie View A&M. There are many HBCUs throughout the State of Texas. We are grateful for the leadership that they have given. They have history.

Soon I will be establishing what we call the Emancipation Trail, which chronicles the announcement of freedom in Texas. It was called Juneteenth. It was 2 years that some learned about their freedom after everyone else was free.

Those stories are being told at the HBCUs, but at the same time, STEM education is being taught. Oakwood College, a historically Black college of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, educates huge numbers of doctors. I am told it has the largest number of African Americans that go into medical school.

STEM is very important to our HBCUs. Texas Southern University has a renowned homeland security program.

This is a good bill, and I thank my colleagues for voting for this very right and positive bill.

Mr. Speaker, as a member of the Bipartisan Congressional HBCU Caucus and an original co-sponsor, I rise in strong support of H.R. 1135, which reauthorizes the Historically Black Colleges and Universities Historic Preservation Program.

H.R. 1135 would authorize the appropriation of $10 million annually from 2018 through 2024 for the Historic Preservation Fund to provide assistance for the restoration and preservation of historic structures at Historical Black Colleges (HBCUs).

Specifically, H.R. 1135, reauthorizes $10 million in annual appropriations for the National Park Service grant program supporting the preservation of historic buildings on the campuses of historically black colleges and universities.

Since the 1980s, the National Park Service (NPS) has awarded more than $65 million to more than 80 HBCUs to repair historic buildings on their campuses.

To be eligible for grants under the program, recipients have to cover 30 percent of the cost of a project.

Eligible projects include stabilization, masonry repair, removing lead paint or other hazards, and the improvement of access for the disabled.

Mr. Speaker, the Historically Black Colleges and Universities Preservation Program exists to preserve, and stabilize historic structures on HBCU campuses through projects such as structural stabilization, masonry repair, replacement of antiquated electrical and plumbing systems, abating environmental hazards such as asbestos, ameliorating termite damage, and replacing leaking roofs.

The HBCU preservation project is critically important because much of the history of African Americans has been lost due to it not being considered important enough by historians to study and the fact that many of the repositories of that history--black churches--have been destroyed by arson.

I thank and my colleague, Assistant Democratic Leader James Clyburn for his work in bringing this important legislation to the floor.

Mr. Speaker, I am proud that one of the greatest HBCUs in the country, Texas Southern University, is located in my congressional district.

Texas Southern University has a rich history with nine academic units, 1,000 dedicated staff members, and over 9,200 esteemed students.

Like most of my HBCU Caucus colleagues, I have worked closely with my local HBCU to provide funding and resources needed to enable them to fulfill their mission of educating the next generation of social engineers and conducting research programs addressing issues of major concern to the African American community.

I was proud to spearhead the initiative that brought more than $13 million in financial aid relief for the students and campus of Texas Southern University.

I also worked with TSU administrators to initiate digital archive projects to preserve the records of two of its most distinguished alumni, the legendary Barbara Jordan and Mickey Leland, both of whom preceded me as the Member of Congress for the Eighteenth Congressional District of Texas.

I was pleased to facilitate a partnership between Comcast and TSU's School of Communication to provide scholarships and internships to TSU students and in-kind marketing services to the university.

I helped secure funding needed to establish the Center for Transportation, Training and Research in the TSU College of Science, Engineering, and Technology.

HBCU's have played a critical role in American history.

As the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. stated:

The function of education is to teach one to think

intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus

character--that is the goal of true education.

HBCUs do not just educate--HBCUs have and will continue to fill an important role in education opportunity and engagement for millions of young people from diverse backgrounds.

I ask my colleagues to support reauthorization of the Historically Black Colleges and Universities Historic Preservation Program by joining me in voting to pass H.R. 1135.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Virginia for yielding me the time.

Mr. Speaker, as a student and former teacher of history, I have worked during my tenure in Congress to preserve and protect our Nation's historic treasures.

Historically Black Colleges and Universities, commonly called HBCUs, are some of the most important historic educational institutions in our country. There are over 100 HBCUs in the country, and eight of them are in South Carolina. I proudly represent seven of them and I am a graduate of one.

Many of them have buildings and sites on their campuses that have existed for over a century and are of great historical significance. Unfortunately, many of the historic buildings and sites on these campuses have deteriorated over the years and are at risk of being lost if not preserved and protected.

In 1998, at the behest of the Congressional Black Caucus, the United States Government Accountability Office, the GAO, surveyed 103 HBCU campuses to identify the historically significant sites on these campuses and project the cost of restoring and preserving these properties. The GAO identified 712 historic buildings and sites, and projected a cost of $755 million to restore and preserve them. Each of these sites has national significance to American history, and I believe we have an obligation to be stewards of these historic treasures.

In 2003, working with our former colleague Jim Hansen of Utah and our current colleague and my dear friend Jimmy Duncan of Tennessee, Congress expanded the program and authorized expenditures of $10 million annually for 5 years. I have seen the results firsthand. Last year, Allen University rededicated the historic Chappelle Auditorium on its campus in Columbia, South Carolina, which was painstakingly restored thanks to funding from this program. Originally built in 1925, this building was central to the cultural life of African Americans in South Carolina for generations.

In 1947, Reverend Joseph A. DeLaine attended an NAACP event at Chappelle Auditorium that inspired him to organize Black families in Clarendon County to petition their school district to provide buses for Black students who, at the time, were forced to make a daily walk of 9.4 miles to school. That was 9.4 miles to school and 9.4 miles back home.

The legal case that grew from this petition, Briggs v. Elliott, precipitated the frontal attack on segregation in the country and was later combined with four other cases that became Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, at the Supreme Court. Overturning the separate-but-equal fallacy, Brown ended legal segregation throughout America.

This is just a singular example of the history living on HBCU campuses. Because of our past efforts, historic buildings and sites at 59 HBCUs in 20 States have received funding from this program. However, many historic structures are still endangered.

Consequently, in the omnibus appropriations bill for 2017, which passed earlier this year, Congress included $4 million for HBCU Historic Preservation so that we could continue this progress.

Last year, the House passed this bill unanimously, but it was not taken up by the Senate. I thank Chairman Bishop and Ranking Member Grijalva for supporting it again today. This bill is supported by the United Negro College Fund, the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, and the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

The HBCU Historic Preservation program serves as an essential purpose to HBCUs, which have a special place in the fabric of American history, culture, and education. Countless individuals have worked tirelessly to cultivate HBCUs, and their legacy is seen in graduates whose achievements adorn the pages of American history. From Booker T. Washington, to Mary McLeod Bethune, W.E.B. DuBois, to Martin Luther King, Jr., HBCU visionaries and graduates have set powerful examples of leadership.

The legacy of HBCUs is one of significant courage and steadfast determination. The structures on these campuses across the country are living testaments to African-American history, and they deserve to be stabilized and restored. HBCUs are among America's national treasures that must be preserved and protected for future generations.

Mr. Speaker, I urge all of my colleagues to support this needed legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 1135, to reauthorize the Historically Black Colleges and Universities Historic Preservation program.

I am so grateful to Congressman Clyburn for his leadership over the years to strengthen and protect the Historic Preservation program on behalf of our Nation's HBCUs. He has been a tireless advocate on behalf of historic preservation of HBCUs, and I am honored today to join him in this effort. Mr. Clyburn has worked tirelessly during his time in Congress to preserve and protect our Nation's historic treasures and the legacies of those who came before us.

Many of us have HBCUs in our district. They represent a steep history of student activism in the civil rights movement. Many of the buildings, sites, and historic records that exist on these campuses have existed for over a century and a half. In 1998, as a matter of fact, the GAO found that there were 712 historic buildings and sites on HBCU campuses. If we do not do more to protect and preserve the vestiges that remain, we will surely lose this important history.

Tuskegee University is one university in my home State of Alabama, where Booker T. Washington, George Washington Carver, and the Tuskegee Airmen all made their place in our Nation's history.

Stillman College; Selma University; Concordia College; Miles College;

Talladega College; Alabama A&M University; and Alabama State University, where my mother and father graduated, are Historically Black Colleges in the State of Alabama.

At Talladega College, these funds were used to restore Foster Hall, which was erected for girls and teachers in 1869, and is the oldest dorm on that campus. This program has helped so many HBCUs in my State. The buildings were nearly destroyed 5 years ago, but the funds from the historic program were used to restore the buildings on Talladega's campus.

When I think about my own district, the Seventh Congressional District of Alabama, at Miles College in Birmingham, students were leaders in the civil rights movement and led a selective buying campaign at local department stores and major retailers in 1963.

Congress has recognized that we have a responsibility to be stewards of these great national resources since we first enacted grants to HBCUs for historic preservation in 1996. The program was then expanded in 2003, thanks to Mr. Clyburn and others. Historical buildings and sites at more than 60 HBCUs have benefited.

If we continue making investments in this program, we can meet the dire historic preservation and restoration needs that remain at these threatened sites. We must not only know our history, but we must also protect our history.

Mr. Speaker, I strongly urge my colleagues to continue this important work by voting for this bill today to reauthorize the HBCU Historic Preservation program through 2024.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of the reauthorization of the HBCU Historic Preservation program. There are ten HBCUs in North Carolina. The Johnson C. Smith University is in my district.

I am pleased to see strong bipartisan support that recognizes how integral Historically Black Colleges and Universities are to our Nation.

I am a proud graduate twice of North Carolina A&T, a retired 40-year professor at Bennett College--both HBCUs in Greensboro.

Most of the structures that this program will help preserve date back to the founding of these schools, most founded in the 19th century. These structures teach us about the lengths that African Americans went through to be educated and to fight for their place in American society.

They also provide important lessons for today, reminding us of how far we have come as a society and how these structures were once built to cope with Jim Crow America but now are used to educate our future lawyers, doctors, and politicians.

They also remind us of how far we have to go, how we must continue to address the numerous inequities HBCUs face compared to other universities when it comes to educating the next generation.

Funding from this program finances repairs that schools with large endowments take for granted, repairs from water damage, asbestos, lead paint, improvements to heating and ventilation systems, and increased physical accessibility for the disabled.

The program helps modernize HBCU campuses, creating a suitable environment for learning and achievement, while allowing these institutions to attract prospective students who deserve an education.

W.E.B. DuBois reminded us: Of all of the civil rights for which the world has struggled and fought for for 500 years, but the right to learn is undoubtedly the most fundamental.

In short, Mr. Speaker, this program is necessary to update HBCU infrastructure and maintain their competitive edge as institutions of higher learning supporting that fundamental right.

The President has said these schools are a priority for his administration. They are absolutely a priority for me as well as for my colleagues of the CBC and the bipartisan HBCU Caucus. So passing it proves that Congress can come together to achieve something substantial for these schools and continue the conversation surrounding HBCUs.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of my good friend Congressman Jim Clyburn's bill to reauthorize the Historically Black Colleges and Universities Historic Preservation program.

I have known Jim Clyburn for more than 35 years, and this has been his passion ever since I first met him many years ago. I thank Mr. Clyburn for his passion and his leadership on this issue.

Since 1988, the HBCU Historic Preservation program has provided more than $60 million to HBCUs all across the country to support infrastructure and facilitate learning.

Both my undergraduate and law school alma mater, North Carolina Central University in Durham, an institution that I am now proud to represent in Congress, has greatly benefited from the program.

And I might say that my father graduated from Shaw University, which is an HBCU, and later from Meharry Medical College. My mother attended high school at Shaw University and graduated from college at Hampton Institute, now called Hampton University.

Mr. Speaker, HBCUs fill a unique and important role in our Nation's higher education system and in our country's narrative. Not only do HBCUs train our workforce of the future by producing the most African- American students who can earn science and engineering doctoral degrees, they are integral parts of our national identity.

The more than 100 HBCUs spread across the country house the books and the memorabilia from freedmen and former slaves dating back many years.

Many of the historic buildings on the campuses of HBCUs were used as meeting places during reconstruction and during the civil rights movement.

HBCUs represent the past, the here and the now, and the future of our country. By reauthorizing this important program through 2024, we can honor the many important faculty and students that have helped HBCUs endure, support people at those institutions today, and prepare our workforce for the future.

I strongly support this bill. I commend my dear colleague, Congressman Jim Clyburn, for his enormous leadership on this important issue. I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on this legislation.