Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize Steve Bassett, an accomplished musician, songwriter and proud Virginian, who for 60 years has made extraordinary contributions to the Commonwealth's musical heritage.

For six decades, Steve has helped shape Virginia's musical heritage through his songwriting, performances and commitment to the arts. His career has taken him to stages across Virginia and beyond, sharing music that reflects the people, places and spirit of the Commonwealth.

Among Steve's most enduring contributions is ``Sweet Virginia Breeze,'' which he co-wrote with Robbin Thompson. Beloved by generations of Virginians, the song celebrates the

natural beauty and history that define our Commonwealth. In 2015, the Virginia General Assembly designated ``Sweet Virginia Breeze'' as Virginia's official popular state song, ensuring that Steve's contribution to Virginia's musical legacy will endure for generations to come.

On October 10, 2026, friends, fellow musicians, and members of the community will gather at the Perkinson Center for the Arts and Education in Chester, Virginia, for ``Steve Bassett: 60 Years in Music.'' The celebration will look back on Steve's remarkable career through music and storytelling while also looking ahead by highlighting the next generation of Virginia artists.

Steve's legacy extends beyond any single song or performance. Throughout his career, he has demonstrated the important role artists play in telling the stories of our communities, preserving our shared culture and bringing people together. His six decades of artistry represent an extraordinary contribution to Virginia's rich musical tradition.

Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join me in congratulating Steve Bassett on 60 years in music and thanking him for his lasting contributions to the arts and cultural heritage of the Commonwealth of Virginia. I wish him continued success as he celebrates this remarkable milestone.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include any extraneous material on the subject of this Special Order.

Mr. Speaker, for the past month, members of the Congressional Black Caucus hit the ground running in our districts, meeting with constituents and hearing firsthand accounts of the impacts the policies of the Trump administration and the congressional Republicans has had on hardworking American families.

As unemployment numbers continue to rise, gas prices soar, the cost of groceries become insurmountable, Americans begin to lose their health insurance, we are in another forever war of choice with no end in sight, and now a trade war with Canada.

The American people were not put first by this President and this Congress, and this week's Special Order hour will offer members of the Congressional Black Caucus the opportunity to share what we heard, the stories we heard, and the real-life human impact of the Trump administration's decisions to take a chainsaw to Federal programs and policies that protect our most vulnerable communities.

It has been almost 2 years since this administration made empty promises of lowering costs and getting us out of forever wars. The administration ignores the pleas for a more affordable way of life and ignores the pleas to address a cost-of-living crisis, saying it is a hoax. The Congressional Black Caucus is bringing these stories to light.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Brown), to share what she heard.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from the 13th District of Ohio (Mrs. Sykes) to share what she saw during the recess.

Mr. Speaker, before we left for the August recess, we celebrated 250 years of our country. We celebrated 250 years of the revolutionary idea outlined in the Declaration of Independence that all men are created equal. The Congressional Black Caucus has fought to include all the people in that phrase, that all people are endowed by their creator with the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, but the next part is the key: that to secure these rights, governments are created by, of, and for the people.

I thought about that when the Energy and Commerce Committee debated H.R. 1, which you all call the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which I call the big, ugly law. I thought that a government that cares for its people must ensure that their basic needs are being met.

I thought about my own parents and how they saw the best of government as children during the Great Depression and the New Deal programs that helped meet the basic needs of the people and put safety nets in place to ensure that something like the Great Depression never happened again.

I thought about what happens when government fails. My parents saw the worst of government through Jim Crow, which decided that ``all men'' did not include my parents because of the color of their skin.

Last April, as I sat through that 26\1/2\-hour hearing, fighting the largest cuts to our healthcare safety net in American history, when Republicans voted to slash more than $1 trillion from Medicaid and gutted the Affordable Care Act enhanced premium tax credits to bankroll tax cuts, to make permanent tax cuts for billionaires, now a trillionaire, and big corporations, I knew that the impact would devastate our healthcare system.

Last August, I traveled across Virginia to talk to patients, providers, and communities about what the cuts would mean for access to care, especially in rural Virginia.

Now, at the time, Senate Democrats identified six rural hospitals in Virginia at risk of closure once the Medicaid cuts took effect, including one in my district, in Emporia, a very small town, that had already lost two of its largest employers, a paper mill and Boar's Head. I talked about the impact that these cuts would have on that community and how devastated that community would be if that hospital closed.

I visited Tazewell, in the Ninth Congressional District, which also had a hospital on that list, and met with providers and community advocates about the impact that the closure of that hospital would have.

I toured the Appalachian Highlands Community Dental Center in Abingdon, where more than 80 percent of their patients rely on Medicaid, and the rest are uninsured. At that time they had a waiting list of approximately 2,800 people who, before that clinic opened, had to wait a year for a dental clinic to come to get everything from cleaning to dentures.

That clinic's co-founder shared with me how important it was for them to fill the gap in healthcare in southwest Virginia.

I shared what I heard with the press, who also came to that clinic. I shared that rural hospitals and clinics were worried about closing their doors or having to end vital services. Patients were worried about losing their health insurance or having to choose between paying premiums, their utility bills, or their rent.

Providers worried that uninsured patients would forego care until it was too late, like Dr. Bickley Craven of Abingdon, who cared for five different women over a year's span, who all had cancer of the uterus and were not insured. They all delayed seeking medical attention even though they had obvious symptoms. Had they sought care when those symptoms first started, they could have been treated, but some of them died because they had no health insurance, delayed seeking care because they didn't want to put the burden of that expense on their families.

Now, in response to these stories, my Republican colleague, who represents that district I was in, told the same reporter that Democrats are just fear-mongering. Yet, around the same time, a rural clinic in Nebraska had just announced plans to close because of the Medicaid cuts in the big, ugly law.

A week later, Augusta Medical Group in Virginia announced the closure of three health clinics in the Shenandoah Valley as ``part of Augusta Health's ongoing response to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.''

These closures were on top of closures of clinics earlier in the year due to Federal funding cuts, delayed grant access because the Trump administration and DOGE just decided they were going to ignore appropriations bills passed by Congress, and Congress did nothing about it. Three clinics in the Capital Area Health Network in my district closed last February.

This August, I checked back in. What has happened in the year since? I visited with Virginia Secretary of Health and Human Services; officials with the Virginia Marketplace, our State-based exchange; providers from free clinics and federally qualified health centers; hospitals; patients; and communities to see what happened.

They painted a very dire picture. Already, 8 million Americans and counting have lost their healthcare. About 100,000 Virginians have already been priced out of their Affordable Care Act plans because the enhanced premium tax credits were allowed to expire.

Mr. Speaker, 300,000 Virginians are at risk of losing their Medicaid when the cuts take full effect in January. The Virginia Joint Commission on Health Care has identified--not six, which was identified a year ago--13 hospitals in Virginia that are now at risk of closing because of these cuts.

Behind these numbers are people and communities that are struggling every single day. Dr. Mohan Nadkarni, founder of the Charlottesville Free Clinic, in the Fifth Congressional District, shared the story of a 21-year-old patient with asthma, who lost his healthcare coverage and could no longer access his medication. He suffered respiratory arrest and became brain-dead. His mother had to make the awful decision to withdraw life support.

Christina Rivera of Augusta County, who founded a Charlottesville- based nonprofit, shared the impact of losing her enhanced premium tax credits. Last year, she paid $235 a month for health insurance due to the marketplace. This year, her premium is $1,336 a month. She works for a nonprofit. Like most families, she doesn't have an extra $14,000 laying around to make up the difference this year. She needed lifesaving spinal surgery. Without her insurance, she would have lost everything: Her farm, her home, her livelihood. She is trying to make do.

Now, our Governor and general assembly are trying to fill the gaps, but they estimate that insurance coverage losses, administrative cuts, decreased provider reimbursements alone, all because of the big, ugly law, could cost the Commonwealth of Virginia between $1.8 billion and $2.6 billion in revenue in one year. On top of that, the Commonwealth has to invest new State funds to overhaul eligibility and payment systems, with penalties assessed for errors.

Virginia hospitals face an estimated $1.2 billion cuts in payments in 2028, which they expect to balloon to nearly $37 billion over the next decade.

Rural and safety net providers, such as federally qualified health centers and free clinics providing care to underserved patients, will bear the brunt of these cuts.

Now, I know what you are thinking: What about the Rural Health Transformation fund? That is like putting a Band-Aid on a big, giant, gaping wound. It is not enough.

So far, nationally, over a thousand hospitals, clinics, and nursing homes have already closed their doors, cut services, or are at risk of doing so, citing the healthcare cuts in the big, ugly law.

As of July 1, over 80 hospital wards, over 40 maternity wards, and nearly 320 clinics have closed. In a country that has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the industrialized world--and if you are a Black woman, you are three times more likely to die because of a childbirth related issue--these expectant mothers are now having to travel farther away for maternity care.

Seniors are losing access to long-term care. People with disabilities are facing devastating disruptions in critical service. People with mental health conditions, who are in crisis, can't get access to care, and our healthcare leaders are sounding the alarm.

Let's talk about the closing of a maternity ward. In Virginia last year, Centra Southside Community Hospital in Farmville closed its labor and delivery unit at the end of the year, citing its reductions in Federal healthcare funding--Medicaid cuts primarily--among the reasons for the decision.

Between 2022 and 2024, that hospital alone was the most common delivery hospital for women in Prince Edward County, where it is located. Now those women have to drive an hour away; like Tami Jaynes, who the day I was in Charlottesville, Charlottesville Tomorrow shared her story. Pregnant with her eighth child, near full term, Tami woke up in the middle of the night with a sense that something was wrong. She couldn't remember the last time she felt her baby kick.

She thought about going to the emergency room in Farmville, which is an hour away, but they don't have obstetric services anymore. They closed them because of the Medicaid cuts. Some patients have been going to Lynchburg, Richmond, or Charlottesville, which are all over an hour- long drive away. Tami decided to switch to a local nonprofit in Farmville that had limited services. It was close to home, though they weren't open until the next morning.

Tami thought: I can drive to Lynchburg, an hour away, or I can wait and go to an already scheduled appointment I have here, at that clinic, at 8 a.m.

That is what she decided to do. She decided to wait. By the time she got to her doctor's appointment, the ultrasound showed no heartbeat. Later that day, Tami delivered her eighth child, Jacob, stillborn.

Reading Tami's story, I could not help but think back to the fear that I had 11 years ago this year, when I woke up in the middle of the night, and my placenta had ruptured. I was 10 minutes from the emergency room. I would not have survived, trying to get to a hospital an hour away. That is what is happening because of these cuts. People already at risk are dying.

Frankly, the American people are sick of it. They are sick of their budgets being squeezed by Republican-driven sticker shock, as premiums more than doubled for nearly 22 million families across the Nation. They are sick of making impossible decisions every day just to make ends meet.

Small business owners are sick of having to close their doors because they can no longer afford to buy insurance on their own. They are sick of

having to choose between putting food on the table or keeping a roof over their head, paying their premiums or paying their utility bills.

They are sick of a forever war of choice in Iran with no clear end in sight, causing energy prices to go up, and the dumbest trade war ever with Canada--Canada--is about to make everything go higher as the cost of oil and key components of fertilizer and aluminum and food stocks go even higher.

The American people are sick of Republicans turning their backs on the American people. They are sick of Donald Trump saying the affordability crisis is a hoax. They want solutions now.

We have legislation pending right now that would reverse these cuts. We just need the Speaker to bring it to the floor for a vote before the harshest parts of the big, ugly law, including these Medicaid cuts, take effect in 2027, conveniently after the midterms, but the American people aren't stupid.

While the full impact of these cuts continues to unfold, more families will lose coverage, more providers will face difficult financial decisions, more communities will be left in the cold, and that is just healthcare.

We will talk a little bit later about food security, but for now, I yield to the gentlewoman from California, Sydney Kamlager-Dove, to share what she has heard.

Mr. Speaker, I want to comment on Canada for 1 minute since Representative Kamlager-Dove talked about Venezuelan oil and part of why I guess we are fighting this war in Iran is to get oil through the Strait of Hormuz.

Mr. Speaker, do you know where two-thirds of the crude oil that the United States uses for gasoline and energy comes from? It is from Canada.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Ivey).

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time I have remaining.

Mr. Speaker, I told you my parents grew up during the Great Depression. They both shared stories of what it was like to go hungry. Children can't learn when they are hungry. People can't work when they are hungry.

In 1939, as a pilot program to address record numbers of the hungry, Congress passed the SNAP program. On this very day in 1964, that program was made permanent to help alleviate the causes of hunger and keep vulnerable populations fed.

Before the big ugly law took effect, about half of SNAP recipients were children. About 4.2 million Americans have lost their SNAP benefits, about half of them children.

I visited central Virginia's largest food relief organization, Feed More, to find out what that meant in Virginia. Over 100,000 Virginians have lost their food benefits because of the big ugly law. That is increasing food insecurity and the demand for Feed More's services.

That is not the only thing. I did a farm tour, and the farmers told me how extreme weather is affecting the yield of their crops, that the tariffs are raising the costs of all of their inputs, and that the reciprocal tariffs and this trade war are eliminating markets for their services. Over 90 percent of the farms in Virginia, including in my district, are small, family-owned farms or individual-owned farms. Many of them get their health insurance through the exchange, and many of them have lost their enhanced premium tax credits.

There are a wide variety of reasons why Feed More said basically the demand for their services is skyrocketing and the resources available to feed people are diminishing.

I couldn't help but think about when shortly after Speaker Johnson became Speaker, he said, I believe in a FOX News interview, that if you wanted to know his political views, read the Bible.

Mr. Speaker, I have read all of it. And over the past year, there is one verse, really two, but I am going to focus on one that I had been repeating over and over in my mind in the 26-and-a-half hour hearing in Energy and Commerce, in the over 24 hours that we debated that bill on this floor last year, then traveling around Virginia to talk to people about the impact they feared, and now, a year later, I am talking to people about the impact they are seeing.

That verse is Matthew 25:34-45. Jesus is basically talking about the righteous and the blessed who will take their inheritance in the kingdom prepared since the creation of the world.

The King will say to them, the blessed when they arrive: I was hungry and you gave me something to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink. I was a stranger and you invited me in. I needed clothes and you clothed me. I was sick and you looked after me. I was in prison and you came to visit me.

The righteous will answer him: Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go and visit you.

The King will reply: Truly, I tell you, whatever you did for the least of these, you did for me, not the billionaire, not the trillionaire, the least of these.

Then he will say to those on his left: Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the Devil and his angels. For I was hungry

and you gave me nothing to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink. I was a stranger and you did not invite me in. I needed clothes and you did not clothe me. I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.

They will answer: When did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick and in prison and not help you?

He will reply: Truly, I tell you, whatever you do not do for the least of these, you do not do for me.

The American people are demanding that we be righteous in this moment and that we feed the hungry. We care for the sick. We house the homeless. We welcome the stranger, because ultimately, we must love our neighbor.

Mr. Speaker, I talked to my neighbors across the Fourth District. I talked to my neighbors across Virginia, and they are hurting. We need to do something to help them. That is what the Congressional Black Caucus will fight for every single day, because when America catches a cold, Black America gets pneumonia and, frankly, we are sick of it.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 9 o'clock and 3 minutes p.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until tomorrow, Tuesday, September 1, 2026, at 11 a.m.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include any extraneous material on the subject of this Special Order.

Mr. Speaker, this week's Congressional Black Caucus Special Order hour is in honor of the life and legacy of civil rights leader and our former colleague, Congressman John R. Lewis, as we mark the sixth anniversary of his passing last week.

Congressman Lewis led our community fearlessly through many pivotal moments in our Nation's history. From his time as a student organizer to marching in Montgomery alongside Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., up until the end of his career in the U.S. House of Representatives, Congressman Lewis was a beacon of light in our darkest times.

His legacy continues to inspire not only this caucus but our country, serving as a blueprint for protecting and expanding democracy, defending the right to vote, advancing the unfinished work of justice and equal representation, the unfinished work of making liberty and justice for all apply to all.

The Supreme Court's recent decision in Louisiana v. Callais underscores the enduring importance of safeguarding the Black vote. The Trump administration's efforts to prioritize the disenfranchisement of our communities and its efforts to roll back progress made in making equality apply to all

galvanizes the Congressional Black Caucus to double down and further his life's legacy.

Today, we commemorate the memory of Congressman John Lewis while we continue to hold the line against ongoing attacks to our right to representation.

I want to reflect on what John Lewis meant to me. Born in 1972, I am the first generation, but hopefully not the last, to benefit from him literally putting his life on the line to extend the promises of our founding documents to all of us.

I studied his history, and I was particularly inspired by how at a young age as a college student, John Lewis put his faith into action. He said in an op-ed he wrote toward the end of his life that Emmett Till was his George Floyd.

When Emmett Till was killed at age 14, John Lewis was only 15 years old.

He said: ``I will never ever forget the moment when it became so clear that he could easily have been me. In those days, fear constrained us like an imaginary prison, and troubling thoughts of potential brutality committed for no understandable reason were the bars.

``Though I was surrounded by two loving parents, plenty of brothers, sisters, and cousins, their love could not protect me from the unholy oppression waiting just outside that family circle. Unchecked, unrestrained violence and government-sanctioned terror had the power to turn a simple stroll to the store for some Skittles or an innocent morning jog down a lonesome country road into a nightmare. If we are to survive as one unified nation, we must discover what so readily takes root in our hearts that could rob Mother Emanuel Church in South Carolina of her brightest and best, shoot unwitting concertgoers in Las Vegas and choke to death the hopes and dreams of a gifted violinist like Elijah McClain.''

At 15 years old, John Lewis decided to do something about it. As a college student, he participated in the national sit-in, a pivotal moment in the civil rights movement, where he and his fellow students targeted segregated lunch counters in downtown Nashville where my father was from.

They were arrested, beaten, and jailed. My grandfather actually served as one of the members of the legal team to those students.

This act of peaceful protest in the face of violent reaction led to the desegregation of the city stores in Nashville.

I will never forget watching a video of Congressman Lewis sitting at the lunch counter, in an exhibit in the Smithsonian Museum of African American History, listening in the headsets to the recording of what the Greensboro Four heard at the Woolworth counter. As it triggered his own memory, he wept.

In May of 1961, Congressman Lewis, then a student, was severely beaten by a White mob at a Greyhound bus terminal in Rock Hill, South Carolina, during the Freedom Rides.

Fifty years later, one of his attackers, Elwin Wilson, came to Washington to ask for his forgiveness. Together, in a very emotional meeting in his office, they listened to another recording of the mob that beat John Lewis nearly to death that day. John Lewis forgave him.

In August of 1963, he was the youngest speaker at the March on Washington, representing one of the Big Six civil rights group.

Then, in March of 1965, he led another March, in Selma, where he was again beaten, along with 600 other peaceful protesters walking across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, who were brutally attacked by State troopers.

Each of these actions galvanized change: the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, and more.

For me, the most memorable moment I got to witness: In 2019, he came to Richmond. He was the keynote speaker at a ceremony to rename the Boulevard after tennis great, Arthur Ashe. After his speech, I had the privilege of escorting him to an exhibit at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. In a former Confederate chapel, the exhibit included a recording of the speech that he gave in response when he opposed the impeachment of President Clinton.

I sat in a pew next to John Lewis and watched him as he listened to that speech for the first time since he gave it. What stuck out to me were the following words: ``When you see something that is not right, not just, not fair, you have a moral obligation to say something, to do something. Our children and their children will ask us, What did you do? What did you say? For some, this vote may be hard, but we have a mission and a mandate to be on the right side of history.''

I watched with tears in my eyes as he listened and wept. He said that was the first time he had heard it but that the words were still true.

Mr. Speaker, we take tough votes here. We take votes that sometimes are the difference between life and death. We take votes to try to stop the rollback of progress. We take votes to make ``liberty and justice for all'' apply to all.

For me, my North Star are the words I just read from John Lewis: When you see something that is not right, say something.

There is a lot I see that is not right. I see a President, in the name of a war on wokeness, dismantling the very civil rights protections that allowed me to be here. I see a President and his congressional enablers dismantling the right to vote, putting on the floor not once, not twice, not three times--at least four times a modern day poll tax that makes a mockery of the Voting Rights Act and the 15th Amendment that it was intended to enforce.

I see a Secretary of Defense who is systematically firing very qualified, very distinguished, decorated generals and leaders, admirals, because they are Black or women. He thinks that, because of that, they must only be there because of DEI. I see that that is wrong, and I am saying something. I will continue to say something because that is what John Lewis would have me do.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Clarke), the chair of the Congressional Black Caucus.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Georgia (Mrs. McBath), from the Sixth District.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Georgia.

As we reflect on Congressman Lewis, I often ask myself what would he say about what is going on today? I have to start with his final words to us, which I want to share now.

Shortly after his death, The New York Times published his last words to us in an op-ed entitled: ``Together, You Can Redeem the Soul of Our Nation: Though I am gone, I urge you to answer the highest calling of your heart and stand up for what you truly believe.''

``While my time here has now come to an end, I want you to know that in the last days and hours of my life you inspired me. You filled me with hope about the next chapter of the great American story when you used your power to make a difference in our society. Millions of people motivated simply by human compassion laid down the burdens of division. Around the country and the world you set aside race, class, age, language, and nationality to demand respect for human dignity.

``That is why I had to visit Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington, though I was admitted to the hospital the following day. I just had to see and feel it for myself that, after many years of silent witness, the truth is still marching on.

``Emmett Till was my George Floyd. He was my Rayshard Brooks, Sandra Bland, and Breonna Taylor. He was 14 when he was killed, and I was only 15 years old at the time. I will never ever forget the moment when it became so clear that he could easily have been me. In those days, fear constrained us like an imaginary prison, and troubling thoughts of potential brutality committed for no understandable reason were the bars.

``Though I was surrounded by two loving parents, plenty of brothers, sisters, and cousins, their love could not protect me from the unholy oppression waiting just outside that family circle. Unchecked, unrestrained violence and government-sanctioned terror had the power to turn a simple stroll to the store for some Skittles or an innocent morning jog down a lonesome country road into a nightmare. If we are to survive as one unified nation, we must discover what so readily takes roots in our hearts that could rob Mother Emanuel Church in South Carolina of her brightest and best, shoot unwitting concertgoers in Las Vegas and choke to death the hopes and dreams of a gifted violinist like Elijah McClain.

``Like so many young people today, I was searching for a way out, or some might say a way in, and then I heard the voice of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., on an old radio. He was talking about the philosophy and discipline of nonviolence. He said we are all complicit when we tolerate injustice. He said it is not enough to say it will get better by and by. He said each of us has a moral obligation to stand up, speak up, and speak out. When you see something that is not right, you must say something. You must do something. Democracy is not a state. It is an act, and each generation must do its part to help build what we called the Beloved Community, a nation and world society at peace with itself.

``Ordinary people with extraordinary vision can redeem the soul of America by getting in what I call good trouble, necessary trouble. Voting and participating in the democratic process are key. The vote is the most powerful nonviolent change agent you have in a democratic society. You must use it because it is not guaranteed. You can lose it.

``You must also study and learn the lessons of history because humanity has been involved in this soul-wrenching, existential struggle for a very long time. People on every continent have stood in your shoes, through decades and centuries before you. The truth does not change, and that is why the answers worked out so long ago can help you find solutions to the challenges of our time. Continue to build union between movements stretching across the globe because we must put away our willingness to profit from the exploitation of others.

``Though I may not be here with you, I urge you to answer the highest calling of your heart and stand up for what you truly believe. In my life I have done all I can to demonstrate that the way of peace, the way of love, and nonviolence is the more excellent way. Now it is your turn to let freedom ring.

``When historians pick up their pens to write the story of the 21st century, let them say that it was your generation who laid down the heavy burdens of hate at last and that peace finally triumphed over violence, aggression, and war. So I say to you, walk with the wind, brothers and sisters, and let the spirit of peace and the power of everlasting love be your guide.''

With that, John Lewis put down the torch, and we have to pick it up. We have to pick it up and run with it because the Beloved Community that he fought for is very far out of sight, farther than it was when he left us.

We still see, rather than a 14-year-old being lynched and killed because he had the temerity to be accused of hitting on a White woman and be killed, we have gone from Black Americans being afraid to walk down the street because of the violence that they may see, to immigrant communities afraid to go to the courthouse, to work, to school, anywhere where they might be detained and deported with no due process, or shot and killed, or detained in horrible conditions and not given the care that they need when they need it.

We now see people who fear going to the grocery store, school, a concert, a movie theater, church, or a baseball game without the fear of gun violence, which he fought so hard against.

We now see, when he encouraged us to learn from our history, an administration that wants to erase it because it is uncomfortable. But like any family tragedy, any family trauma, we cannot heal from the ugly parts of American history if we don't talk about it and learn from it.

See, we also need to understand our history and learn it because we have been here before. As John Lewis said: ``The truth does not change, and . . . the answers worked out long ago can help you find solutions to the challenges of our time.'' But, if you are not teaching that history, if you are erasing it from our museums, our public spaces, and our classrooms, you can't learn it, and you can't learn from it.

We are, once again, involved in a war with no end in sight, and no one really understands how it started. We are seeing the weaponization of the very tools that gave us our closest moment to where we could say liberty and justice for all applied to all: The Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, the 14th Amendment, the 15th Amendment being weaponized to dismantle the progress we made of overcoming the legacy of over 300 years of slavery and Jim Crow.

We could be discouraged. I know a lot of people are. A lot of young people

who I talk to are--a lot of people who recognize that they have fewer rights than their parents did, a lot of people who realize they are fighting the same fights as their parents, their grandparents, and their great-grandparents.

They are people who are struggling to put food on the table, to keep the lights on, to get the healthcare they need when they need it without going bankrupt.

A lot of people are in despair, but John Lewis had something to say to them, too: ``Do not get lost in a sea of despair. Be hopeful, be optimistic. Our struggle is not the struggle of a day, a week, a month, or a year. It is the struggle of a lifetime. Never ever be afraid to make some noise and get into good trouble, necessary trouble.''

Mr. Speaker, we are picking up the baton. I have picked up the baton. The Congressional Black Caucus has picked up the baton, and we will never ever drop it. We will fight back against attempts to roll back our voting rights. We will fight back against attempts to erase our history. We will fight back against attempts to erase the legacy that still lingers and impacts our communities--that legacy of over 300 years of slavery and Jim Crow.

We will never stop fighting for any community that is targeted and marginalized solely because of who they are. We will never stop fighting until, as Dr. King said, we can all say: ``Free at last, free at last. Thank God Almighty, I am free at last,'' and until the promises of the Declaration of Independence, written 250 years ago, become true for everybody that this government recognizes that all people are created equal with the natural rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and that the purpose of government is to secure and protect those rights.

That is what John Lewis nearly gave his life for on that bus in South Carolina and on that bridge in Selma. He fought to the very end until he didn't have the strength to fight anymore. We owe it to him to pick up that baton and never let it go until we hand it off to the next generation, who will fight to protect our democracy and our beloved community.

I thank John Lewis for dedicating his life so that generations who never met him will benefit from his work. We will carry it on.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 8 o'clock and 25 minutes p.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until tomorrow, Tuesday, July 21, 2026, at 10 a.m. for morning-hour debate.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the City of Colonial Heights, Virginia, as it celebrates its 100th Anniversary and to congratulate its residents, businesses, and community leaders on a century of remarkable history, growth, and service.

Officially incorporated as an independent city in 1926, Colonial Heights has grown from a small community into a thriving city that proudly serves as an economic, cultural, and civic anchor for Virginia's Tri-Cities region. Throughout the past century, the city has demonstrated resilience and a steadfast commitment to preserving its history while embracing opportunities for the future.

Colonial Heights has long been distinguished by the dedication of its public servants, educators, first responders, military families, small businesses, faith communities, and countless volunteers whose service has strengthened the fabric of the community. Their contributions have helped create a city known for its strong neighborhoods, excellent schools, vibrant local economy and exceptional quality of life.

As part of this historic milestone, the City is hosting Americana Fest, a signature centennial celebration that highlights the music, craftsmanship, culture, and traditions that have shaped Colonial Heights over the last one hundred years. By bringing together residents and visitors from across the Commonwealth, the celebration not only honors the city's rich heritage but also showcases the local businesses, artists, and organizations that continue to drive its success.

One hundred years is a testament to the vision, perseverance, and community spirit of generations of residents who have built a city worthy of pride and admiration. I ask my colleagues to join me in congratulating the City of Colonial Heights on its Centennial Anniversary and in wishing its residents continued prosperity, opportunity and success for the next one hundred years.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 7757, the bipartisan Kids Internet and Digital Safety Act, or the KIDS Act.

As a member of Gen X, who is a mom to a Gen Z teen and Gen Alpha tween, I struggle every day to find the balance between giving our kids the freedom they need to develop and grow and keeping them safe. I see every day that the digital world kids face today is unlike anything previous generations have faced before.

Every day innovators launch new technologies, applications, and online platforms that create incredible opportunities for learning, creativity, and connection. Those same innovations also create new opportunities for those who would do our kids harm. New risks for invasive data collection, cyberbullying, online exploitation, and harmful content.

It is much harder for parents or other trusted adults today to protect kids from these harms that they often don't see in an ecosystem they often don't understand.

It is past time for Congress to act before more children are put at risk. We are probably 20 years too late. We can't wait anymore.

The KIDS Act closes critical gaps in Federal law by strengthening privacy protections for children and teens; banning targeted advertising to minors; limiting unnecessary data collection, giving parents and teens greater control over personal information; increasing transparency for data brokers; and requiring online platforms to implement stronger default safety tools that reduce harmful interactions. Notably, it preserves every State's ability to go even further.

While this package does not include everything that we would like to see, we cannot let the perfect become the enemy of the good, and this bill is a critical first step.

Our children deserve to enjoy the benefits of technology without sacrificing their privacy, their safety, or mental health.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Ranking Member Pallone and Chairman Guthrie for bringing Democrats and Republicans on the committee together to produce this significant bipartisan legislation at a time when most people believe bipartisanship is dead.

Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of the Rural and Municipal Utility Cybersecurity Act, which I am proud to co-lead with Representative Miller-Meeks of Iowa.

This bill represents the sort of bipartisan work that is important for the security and stability of the American grid and the safety of the American people.

This bill reauthorizes the vital RMUC program, which helps rural and small municipalities to protect themselves against ever-multiplying and more sophisticated cybersecurity threats that could prove severely disruptive to small and rural communities alike, just like the ones I represent in Virginia's Fourth Congressional District.

Far too often, these communities lack the resources and the support necessary to defend against malign actors targeting important infrastructure and services, and AI has made it easier for such malign actors to do so.

For example, rural Prince George County, Virginia, in my district, just a few weeks ago, fell victim to a cyber incident that impacted the county's payment services. Fortunately, the attack didn't impact other, more consequential services, but it serves as an example of why we must take proactive steps to ensure the security of our grid, especially in small and rural communities that are especially vulnerable.

Our bill fills those gaps by ensuring that these communities can face the challenges of our increasingly digital world and, in turn, bolster cybersecurity defenses for the entire Nation's grid.

Madam Speaker, I am glad to work with my colleague from Iowa to advance this important bill, and I urge my colleagues to support our legislation to reauthorize this vital program.

Mr. Speaker, 250 years ago, the Continental Congress, meeting in Philadelphia, gave birth to a new Nation built on the revolutionary idea that the power of government is derived from the people. The Continental Congress gave birth to a government by, of, and for the people based upon principles of liberty and justice for all.

Today, we can be extraordinarily proud that the United States of America still stands upon those principles, but we also have to acknowledge that the promise of America remains unfinished 250 years later.

Today, for Black Americans in historically marginalized communities, the ideals upon which this Nation has been founded have too often been delayed, denied, or defended only after bitter struggle.

From the fight to end slavery to the struggle against Jim Crow to the ongoing battles for voting rights, equal justice, economic opportunity, and quality healthcare, the story of America has always been a story of both promise and unfinished progress.

At this critical moment, we must be clear: Celebrating America's extraordinary history cannot mean ignoring the work that is still before us to form that more perfect Union. A true commemoration of 250 years must reckon with the reality upon which this country was founded, reconcile it with the ideals upon which this country was founded, and reckon with the communities who built this Nation, fought to perfect it, and continue to demand that its promises are made real for all people.

Tonight, the Congressional Black Caucus remains committed to ensuring our Nation's progress is measured not only by its past but by its continued pursuit of liberty and justice for all as we strive for that more perfect Union:

``We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.''

Mr. Speaker, when Thomas Jefferson wrote those words in the Declaration of Independence, which the Continental Congress adopted on July 2, 1776, he did not include me. He did not include nearly half a million enslaved men, women, and children in the Thirteen Colonies, including his own children at his beloved Monticello.

Over a decade later, when James Madison wrote ``The Virginia Plan'' that formed the foundation for our U.S. Constitution, creating a government by, of, and for we the people, in order to form a more perfect Union, he and the delegates to that convention did not include me. They did not include over 300 enslaved people who lived and labored at his Montpelier estate, over three generations of the Madison family.

Indeed, the Constitution adopted in 1789, considered enslaved individuals, like my ancestors, only three-fifths of a person for the purpose of how many people would serve in this body and for taxation. Beyond that, they were treated as property.

For 250 years, the story of America has been one of each generation trying to reconcile the ideals upon which this country was founded with the reality and to make the ideals true for everyone.

It has taken a Civil War, the 13th, 14th, 15th, and 19th amendments, at a minimum, to get us closer to that more perfect Union.

We have made progress. I would not be standing before you as the first Black woman elected to this body or to serve in this body, period, from the Commonwealth of Virginia, the birthplace of American democracy and the birthplace of American slavery. I wouldn't be standing here if we hadn't made progress.

Every time we have made progress as a Nation toward that more perfect Union, there has been a backlash, and that backlash has involved propaganda, violence, and voter suppression. Yet, we continue to strive for that more perfect Union.

I am proud to be part of the Congressional Black Caucus, the conscience of the Congress, that has fought for that progress, to keep that progress, and to build upon that progress.

Virginia has played a leading role in this struggle of reconciling the ideals upon which our country was founded with its reality. Established on July 30, 1619, Virginia boasts the oldest continuous law-making body in the Western Hemisphere. The first elected legislative assembly in the New World, the Virginia General Assembly, in which I and many of my fellow members of the Virginia delegation have served. It was the birthplace for the birth of American democracy.

One month later, a Dutch privateer arrived on the shores of Virginia with 20-and-odd Africans, captured by Portuguese slavers in West Central Africa, and they were traded for provisions.

Three months after that, Virginia took steps toward becoming a permanent colony by recruiting English women to Jamestown to make wives for the inhabitants. When those women arrived, they had no right to vote, no right to hold public office, no right to control their own property.

Since 1776, and particularly since 1789, America has been faced with a question of how to make true for all Americans the promise of our founding documents.

How do we make true a government by, of, and for the people when for so much of our history too many people weren't allowed to participate.

We have, again, as I said, made progress. A lot of that progress was bought with the blood of the Civil War, bought with the blood of people during the civil rights movement, marching, fighting, and, in some cases, dying for the right to vote.

Yet today, we face a rollback of that progress. We have a President who insists he will not sign another bill unless it is a modern day poll tax, the SAVE America Act, which would require every American to prove their citizenship before they can vote through documents that cost money.

That is just as much a poll tax as the poll tax my father paid when he first registered to vote in Tennessee. It is on the Bible where he kept that receipt that I took my oath of office to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States--all of it, not just the convenient parts.

We will continue, as the Congressional Black Caucus, to fight for progress. We stand on the shoulders of those who paved the way before us. We are building a path for those who will come after us.

As John Lewis said, democracy is not a State. It is an act that requires every generation to do its part to build a beloved community. Democracy in and of itself is not the point. It is what you do with it. It is what you do to build that more perfect Union.

My parents, growing up during the Depression, under the tyranny of Jim Crow, as they fought to participate in their government, saw the best of government when the full force of the Federal Government was used during the New Deal to help people solve problems beyond their control caused by the Depression.

They saw the worst of government, a government that oppressed them solely for the color of their skin, for the benefit of others.

They sparked in me a desire to make government that force that helps people and solves problems.

That is what gets me through the chaos, quite frankly, Mr. Speaker. I am very cognizant every day that I serve in this body, and especially on certain days when court decisions come out of the Supreme Court, I am very cognizant that I am fighting the same fights that my parents, my grandparents, and my great-grandparents fought.

I could be angry about that, but I am joyful. I am joyful because I fight those

fights from a position of more strength and power than they ever imagined. I fight those fights so that my children and their children don't have to. But, if they do, they fight from a position of more strength and power than I do.

At the end of the day, in a government by, of, and for the people, government reflects the perspective and, therefore, meets the needs of the people who participate. That is why the right to vote is so sacred. That is why the Congressional Black Caucus will fight tooth and nail to protect it.

It was purchased through blood, sweat, and many tears. It was promised in our founding documents creating this government by, of, and for the people. We will not rest while some are denied the exercise of that right, because of barriers put in their way that have absolutely nothing to do with their ability to determine their own destiny.

Now, Mr. Speaker, behind every Founding Father and mother who fought to give birth to our Nation and make those ideals upon which this country was founded true for everyone, there is a family. Today, American families face serious strains as it becomes increasingly difficult to afford a home, childcare, education, healthcare, retirement, groceries, paying their energy bills. Black families especially face challenges amidst the cost-of-living crisis that makes it much harder to pay rent or mortgages, put food on the table, keep the lights on, and get the healthcare they need when they need it.

A year ago, the policies put forward by congressional Republicans in what I call the big, ugly bill made that even worse--stripping healthcare away from millions of Americans, shredding our healthcare safety net into tatters, taking food out of the mouths of hungry families, all to benefit the wealthiest top 10 percent in this country.

The administration's policies to separate families and slash healthcare funding continue to threaten the well-being of families across the country.

Our country faces not only a record-low fertility rate as the cost of raising a child surpasses $300,000, but it continues to face maternal mortality rates, infant mortality rates, and preterm birth rates that are worse than any other industrialized nation.

If you are a Black woman, you are more than three times as likely to die as a White woman from a childbirth-related death.

When you have a child in America, because we are one of the only developed nations without a national paid leave policy, one in four American mothers have to return to work within 2 weeks of giving birth because they cannot afford to stay home, even though you need at least 6 weeks to recover from childbirth, 8 weeks if you have had a C- section. Believe me, you really need more than 8 weeks, as I know as I had one when my placenta ruptured and my daughter was born 9 weeks before her due date. I needed more than 8 weeks to recover.

For our families, the basic necessities of life: housing, healthcare, childcare are increasingly out of reach.

The Heritage Foundation has issued their blueprint for American families, the Saving America By Saving the Family blueprint, which is a blueprint for conservative domestic and social policy plans; but instead of putting forward solutions to the problems that all American families face, such as the high maternal infant mortality rates, high preterm birth rates, high cost of childbirth, high cost of childcare, high cost of healthcare, lack of national paid leave, and the skyrocketing costs of everyday life, the plan focuses on a narrow view of what constitutes a family and ignores the wide diversity of families that call America home.

I have a different vision, and that is why this week I will release the all American family agenda, which illustrates a plan to make family life accessible and affordable for every American family, not just the ones that look like mine--regardless of how they are formed, regardless of where they live, what they earn, how they worship, but everyone.

The all American family agenda will call for a future where America families are free to plan when, whether, and how to have children; free from the fear that a pregnancy may be too costly or complicated; free from the fear that if they need medical intervention that their provider will have to wait until they are close enough to death to intervene; one where they are free to work and care for loved ones without living paycheck to paycheck.

As we mark 250 years of this Nation, American families deserve opportunities to grow, afford, and care for their families for the next 250 years--every American family, not just a few.

Mr. Speaker, there is so much more I could say as we celebrate 250 years of this extraordinary country. It is one I am proud to live in. It is one I am proud to serve as a Member of Congress. It is also one I love enough to ask it to live up to its promises to all people who live here.

We have come a long way, but we also have seen a lot of that progress rolled back. We are in that backlash again. We are in the same backlash that my great grandfather saw: the backlash to reconstruction, the backlash that told him that he had to take a literacy test in Alabama and find three White men to vouch for his character just to be able to register to vote. It was the backlash that he faced in his community as racial terror lynchings tried to put Black people back in their place as defined by white supremacists and former Confederates who came back into power. It was the same backlash in his generation that created the live white supremacy to break up coalitions between formerly enslaved people and poor nonlandowning White people that was beginning to make progress for life, liberty, justice, and the pursuit of happiness for all.

We are now in the same backlash that my parents faced. My mother, who was the third youngest of 14 children, who was the first in her family to go beyond the eighth grade because, in her town, the State of Mississippi didn't think it was important enough to educate Black children, she had to move after working for a year just to get a high school diploma. She had to move to go to college. She saw firsthand in her family because her siblings, her parents, and her other family members and friends didn't have that opportunity, that they were limited in the jobs they could take. That is why every woman in her family was a domestic, caring for White people's children, and every man in her family was a laborer, because that is all that was available to them under the tyranny of Jim Crow.

My father who had to pay that poll tax and my mother who didn't vote until after 1965, we are facing that backlash now. We are facing the violence of people who stormed this building to take by force what they couldn't win at the ballot box for only the second time in American history. We are facing the voter suppression of a modern-day poll tax. We are facing the propaganda of stolen elections, birtherism, and the creation of villains in a limited view of what the American Dream and the American story should be.

But just like generations before us fought that backlash, the Congressional Black Caucus is standing up here today to fight back against this one. In a government by, of, and for the people, government reflects the perspective and, therefore, meets the needs of the people who participate.

We fought long and hard to expand that participation beyond the White landowning men that signed the Declaration of Independence and ratified the Constitution. We fought too hard for too long to ensure every American had the ability to pursue life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is our job as Members of Congress to help the American people today achieve those by protecting their rights, not rolling them back.

Mr. Speaker, we are not going back. Mr. Speaker, we are going forward.

We are fighting to ensure that the ideals upon which this country was founded become true for everybody, that when we say liberty and justice for all, we mean all, not just people who look like us, not just people who worship like us, not just people who were born in this country, or not just people who love like us, but everybody.

We will fight for that more perfect Union every single day. If necessary, we will die for it because too many people did.

Mr. Speaker, I will close with this. As the President wants to reshape what

history is taught in our schools, what history is shown in our public spaces, and what history is shown in our museums, as he wants to ignore what he considers to be uncomfortable or puts America in a dark and unflattering light, we are not that perfect Union yet. There is good; there is bad; and there is ugly. We have to embrace all of it because it makes us who we are today, and we will never achieve that more perfect Union if we don't understand where we are and how we got here.

It is also important that we learn the good, the bad, and the ugly because the bad and the ugly help us to celebrate how far we have come. That came home to me when I took my children back to the African- American history museum last year during spring break. As I stood in the exhibit on the Middle Passage, which I had been in many, many times, that time, in the midst of the chaos we find ourselves in, I realized that somebody survived that so that I could be here in this moment, right now, celebrating 250 years of the ideal of liberty and justice for all, that I can fight for the reality of liberty and justice for all.

I am not going to let anybody take away the ability to celebrate that. I am not going to let anybody take away my joy at coming from an unknown member of my family. We think we know, but we don't. DNA has allowed us to figure out maybe where they came from. We have no idea who they are, but to come through the Middle Passage and end up with a descendant serving in this body, that is an extraordinary American story. You can't celebrate it if you don't celebrate how it began. You can't fully celebrate how it began if you are not honest about how it began.

Mr. Speaker, as we each commemorate in our own way what 250 years of America means, it means to me that I will fight as a member of the Congressional Black Caucus with my now 61 colleagues, a record number, as we face challenges to our strength through redistricting and efforts to suppress votes. We are going to fight every day to strive for that more perfect Union because we believe in the promise of the Declaration of Independence.

We swore an oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution that created a government by, of, and for the people. We will not rest until the ideals upon which this country was founded become true for everyone who calls America home.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to celebrate World Vitiligo Day, raising awareness for the 3.7 million Americans living with the autoimmune condition that causes discoloration of the skin, like Erika, one of my constituents who sought a way to treat her vitiligo symptoms throughout her childhood.

Even though the FDA first approved a repigment treatment for vitiligo in 2020, access to treatments remained financially out of reach for constituents like Erika due to Virginia's classification of vitiligo as a cosmetic condition rather than what it actually is: an autoimmune disease.

Absent treatment, vitiligo patients face significant mental health burdens and stigma that contribute to their worsening health and less productivity.

While Medicare covers vitiligo treatment, Medicaid coverage varies State by State. Since Virginia classifies vitiligo as a cosmetic condition, Medicaid won't cover the treatment in our Commonwealth.

Today, I urge the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to certify that vitiligo is a noncosmetic autoimmune condition so that Medicaid recipients with this condition can access the life-changing treatments.

No matter where you live, you should be able to get the treatment you need when you need it.

Mr. Speaker, I was 1 month old when the Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade recognized the constitutional right to abortion. For most of my life, I had the peace of mind that the decision of when, whether, and how to become a parent would be mine.

I nearly died giving birth to my daughter 11 years ago, when my placenta ruptured 9 weeks before my due date. I was wheeled into the emergency room, and I had the peace of mind that my doctor could do what she felt in that moment was best, without fear of prosecution.

That changed 4 years ago today when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and made me the first generation of my family to lose a constitutional right in my lifetime. Now, my daughter, with fewer rights than me, faces threats to her reproductive freedom.

Today, over one in three women of childbearing years lives in a State with abortion bans or extreme restrictions. At a time when the United States has the highest maternal mortality rate of any other industrialized nation, women are dying because they can't access the reproductive care they need when they need it, like Nevaeh Crain, who was denied care while suffering a miscarriage until she was septic and died.

As chair of the Abortion Access and Rights Task Force of the congressional Reproductive Freedom Caucus, I am fighting so that everyone has the reproductive freedom they deserve.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the subject of this Special Order.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to anchor this Congressional Black Caucus Special Order hour to speak directly to the American people about Gun Violence Awareness Month.

We are here to address the public health crisis facing not only the constituents of the Congressional Black Caucus but all Americans. Gun violence is an everyday reality that robs loved ones, erodes our sense of security, and shortens too many bright futures.

Every year, roughly 44,000 people in the United States die of gun- related injuries. In 2023, the most recent year for which the CDC provided complete data, 46,728 people died from gun-related injuries.

Black men ages 15 to 34 are most at risk, with firearm homicide rates at 22.6 per 100,000.

White males, particularly those who are 65 and older, have been disproportionately impacted by firearm suicides at a rate of 17.8 per 100,000.

In my own State of Virginia, gun violence kills over 1,200 people and wounds over 1,600 people. Suicides are 66 percent of those deaths.

In Richmond alone, where I live, 221 people were shot in 2025. While that number is the lowest on record since 2015, it is still too high.

These statistics are jarring, but they are more than just statistics. Each number is a personal tragedy--mothers, fathers, sons and daughters, friends, and loved ones whose lives were cut short due to gun violence, like 23-year-old Genesis Jones of Petersburg, Virginia, who was killed while celebrating her brother's 25th birthday when a large altercation in the area led to gunfire that killed her and 42- year-old Dominic Antoine Jackson. They died because too many people resort to gun violence to resolve what was once done by fists.

Barbie Perez, 28 years old, was shot multiple times by the father of her child during an argument. He reportedly pushed Perez, and then the argument moved outside. He went to his car and then came back, pulled out a shotgun, and shot Perez in the leg and chest. Perez' mother saw him press the gun against her back and fire more rounds before putting the car in reverse and leaving the neighborhood.

Sierra Jenkins, a 25-year-old journalist at the Virginian-Pilot and Daily Press, was one of three people killed and five people shot in a shooting in downtown Norfolk after an argument broke out.

Increasingly, gun violence takes our children, becoming the number one cause of death for teens and children, like Zion Terry, the 18- year-old John Marshall student just weeks away from graduating, and his 14-year-old sister from Henderson Middle School, Sadie Terry, both killed by Sadie's father in a fit of rage.

Marquan Mitchell-Nash, my son's classmate, 1 week after I stood on this floor and took my oath of office, was killed accidentally by a gun he and his friends were using as a prop while filming a music video.

Shawn Jackson, an 18-year-old Huguenot High School student, and his stepfather, Lorenzo Smith, were killed moments after Shawn received his high school diploma because of a beef that started on Instagram and ended at that ceremony.

Samiyah ``Mimy'' Yellardy, a 17-year-old George Wythe High School student, was shot and killed in her own home on early Sunday morning during spring break.

McKenna Young, an 11-year-old, and 1-year-old Landrie Harris were both found with apparent gunshot wounds inside their Memphis home, where their mother was found with stab wounds.

These deaths impact families, but they impact entire communities. We cannot allow this violence to become normalized. We must stand together to advance commonsense gun safety legislation, invest in gun community violence intervention programs, and address the root causes that perpetrate this cycle of harm.

Year after year, we go back to our districts, and we talk to community leaders, faith leaders, and families about the real threats that they face. The overwhelming consensus is that Congress must pass comprehensive,

commonsense gun safety legislation if things are ever going to get better, because standing in the well for a moment of silence and thoughts and prayers after each death is not enough.

As a State legislator, I was proud to take action to address this crisis, championing investment in the Firearm Violence and Intervention and Prevention Fund, which provided a pathway to research, demographics, and trends and implemented evidence-based solutions to address the root causes of gun violence, because those causes in the city of Richmond may be different than in Chesterfield, Norfolk, Roanoke, or anywhere else.

I led the senate to pass a bill to establish a center that takes a comprehensive approach by empowering communities to address those root causes in all its forms, and now I am working at the Federal level. We had a similar program that the White House set up under the Biden- Harris administration to work with communities to address the root causes of gun violence in those communities through evidence-based research. Now, it is gone.

I don't even know if the CDC is still tracking the data necessary on these deaths, but as a member of the Gun Violence Prevention Task Force and as a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, I am committed to keeping our communities safe with these commonsense gun reform policies like universal background checks and gun trace data. Yet, the majority has failed to bring a single piece of gun violence legislation to the floor for a vote this Congress, even when there is bipartisan support for investing and addressing root causes of gun violence.

We are working against the backdrop of an administration whose Federal funding cuts actively prevent us from doing our jobs to reduce such violence.

Last year, the Trump administration terminated nearly 400 grants from the Department of Justice's Office of Justice Programs, which provided supported for everything from victim services to substance use and mental health treatment to juvenile justice and child protection.

These grants were initially valued at $820 million over multiple years. And when the administration rescinded the remaining balances for these awards, they cost our communities an additional $500 million and more lives.

The Trump administration then made deep cuts to OJP's Community Violence Intervention and Prevention Initiative, the largest source of Federal funding for community violence intervention, even though it is popular on a bipartisan basis.

This funding was authorized by Congress and the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act of 2022. Since then, over $300 million was invested in addressing community violence intervention programming and research. Now, half of those investments have been cut.

The President's latest budget cuts more than $500 million in funding to the DOJ's State and local grant programs, including restorative justice programs, community-based approaches to advancing justice, including zeroing out the community violence intervention programs. These programs are necessarily vital if we are going to intervene in the public health crisis of gun violence.

The Trump administration has also moved to rapidly and effectively reshape American gun policies, loosening restrictions, and putting more lives in danger.

This past April, ATF released 34 proposed and final rules that would severely deregulate the firearm industry. Last year's, you call it the big, beautiful bill, I call it the big ugly law, removed the $200 silencer suppressor tax even though silencers and suppressors were outlawed decades ago on a bipartisan basis.

All this does is invite tragedy back into our communities. Again, we cannot allow violence to become normalized and an acceptable part of our daily lives. So I call on my colleagues to let this June, this Gun Violence Prevention Month, serve not only as a moment of awareness but a call to action to pass meaningful reform that will save lives, support survivors, and build safer communities for the next generation.

I thank each of my colleagues who will speak tonight. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Illinois' Second District (Ms. Kelly).

Mr. Speaker, I said that gun violence is more than just statistics. Every death is someone's loved one.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Georgia, (Mrs. McBath), the Representative for Georgia's Seventh District and someone touched by gun violence directly.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Georgia for sharing her story and turning tragedy into action.

Mr. Speaker, it is every parent's worst nightmare that when your child leaves home, whether to go to school, the mall, to worship, to a park, to a birthday party, to a friend's house, walking down the street, jogging, riding a bike, bird watching, driving and turning into the wrong driveway, when you send them off, you never see them again because of the scourge of gun violence.

It is every parent's worst nightmare when the alert goes out about a mass shooting and you wonder: Is my child there?

It is every parent's worst nightmare when their child is in the middle of a mental health crisis and because it is all too easy for them to get access to a gun, that rather than getting the help they need from medical providers, they end their suffering with a gun.

Mr. Speaker, it is every parent's worst nightmare that when you marry off your child and the marriage goes wrong or the relationship, if they are not married, and in the midst of that conflict the person who professed to love your child the most takes their life in the ultimate act of betrayal and control.

I want to thank Congresswoman McBath for having the strength to turn her nightmare into action so no other parent has to live through it.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Ivey).

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Bell).

Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned when I started, gun violence doesn't just impact those who lose their lives and their loved ones. It impacts entire communities.

Now that gun violence is the number one cause of death of children-- and I think about when I was a child, for some reason, as a member of Gen X, I was terrified of quicksand. Now, the likelihood of my being killed by quicksand was pretty low. Yet, everybody that I know who is a member of Gen X, who was a kid in the eighties, was terrified of quicksand. Now, my children are terrified of gun violence.

The anxiety they feel--particularly my son when they have an active- shooter drill, the anxiety they feel when a loud pop occurs in a public place--my son, who in the middle of his seventh grade year, after the excitement of standing on this floor as I was sworn in to office, a week later was mourning the death of his classmate, Marquan Mitchell- Nash, who was killed when a gun that he and his friends were using as a prop in a music video fired accidentally and killed him.

His school year ended a day early when Shawn Jackson, moments after receiving his high school diploma, and his stepfather, Lorenzo Smith, were killed due to gun violence that started as beef on Instagram. Something that, in my generation, high school students would have settled with their fists is now being settled permanently through guns that can cause massive damage in a small amount of time and that are all too easy to access because the root causes that lead them to pick up that gun go unaddressed.

Every time there is a shooting, whether at a grocery store, a house of worship, a school, a park, someone's home, while driving down the street, a concert, a nightclub, a movie theater--no place is immune. Every time there is a shooting, whether it is a mass shooting or the unreported, often overlooked day-to-day domestic violence or individual crimes, my son asks me a question: ``Mom, am I next?'' I look him in the eye and say, ``I am doing everything within my power to ensure that you are not.''

Mr. Speaker, I can't do it alone. Our communities can't do it alone. We are about to celebrate 250 years of the remarkable idea that all people are created equal and endowed by their creator with the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The purpose of government is to help them achieve those ends, or at least get out of the way.

I came here to help people and solve problems. The number one problem plaguing our communities right now, and especially our children, is gun violence. Yet, even when there is bipartisan support, we can't get a vote on anything that will make a difference.

I am tired of having to see that look of fear on my son's face when he hears of another shooting and having to hear that question. I am tired of the pit in my chest when my kids leave the house, and I wonder if they will come back, not because of anything that they do but because of the public health crisis of gun violence.

So let's do something about it. At a minimum, let's address the root causes, but thoughts and prayers aren't enough.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the subject of this Special Order.

Mr. Speaker, it is with great honor that I rise today to anchor this Congressional Black Caucus Special Order hour commemorating Juneteenth.

Next week, the Nation will pause to celebrate Juneteenth. Juneteenth commemorates June 19, 1865, when Union Major General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas, and issued General Order No. 3, which finally freed more than 250,000 enslaved people in that State.

For while the Emancipation Proclamation officially went into effect on July 1, 1863, emancipating those enslaved in the rebelling States of the Confederacy, it took over 2\1/2\ years for the news to reach the western-most Confederate State of Texas.

Broadly, Juneteenth marks Freedom Day, Jubilee Day, or Black Independence Day. Juneteenth is considered the

longest-running African-American holiday. While communities have celebrated the date since 1866, it was not officially signed into United States law as a Federal holiday until June of 2021.

Juneteenth symbolizes that, unlike what we were taught in our schoolbooks, emancipation was not a moment. It was a movement. It was a movement that included acts of resistance, rebellion, and self- liberation since Africans first arrived on American soil in bondage.

As the first Black woman serving in this body from the Commonwealth of Virginia, I am all too familiar with this story, for the Commonwealth is both the birthplace of American democracy and the birthplace of the American slave trail.

In July of 1619, the House of Burgesses met at Jamestown, bringing the concept of a representative democracy modeled after the English Parliament that evolved into the modern-day bicameral legislature. The House of Burgesses continues to operate today as the Virginia House of Delegates.

A month later, in August of 1619, a Dutch privateer arrived at Point Comfort, Virginia, containing, ``20 and odd'' Africans that John Rolfe recorded were traded for provisions. They were originally captured by Portuguese slavers in West Central Africa, known today as Angola.

While slavery was not officially acknowledged in the laws of Virginia until 1661, there is no doubt that the first Africans aboard the White Lion were treated as slaves, assigned heavy labor, and treated as property by the colonial elite.

I am quite cognizant that 250 years ago when Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence and said that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, he did not include the nearly half a million enslaved men, women, and children or, indeed, any women at all in the Thirteen Colonies. He did not include those enslaved at his beloved Monticello, including his own children.

I am quite clear that when James Madison wrote the Virginia Plan that formed the foundation for a government by, of, and for we the people in order to form a more perfect Union, he did not include the over 300 enslaved people who lived and labored at his Montpelier estate under three generations of his family.

The U.S. Constitution, adopted in 1789, considered enslaved individuals only three-fifths of a person for the purpose of how many people would serve in this body and for taxation. The States that came together to create that more perfect Union treated those people as property.

Since 1789, the story of America has been one of each generation trying to reconcile the ideals upon which we were founded with the reality and making the ideals true for us all.

Despite what some would have you believe, slavery literally tore this country apart, for as then Abraham Lincoln predicted in 1858, a house divided against itself cannot stand. He said this government could not endure permanently, half slave and half free. While he did not expect the Union to be dissolved, and he did not expect the house to fall, he expected it would cease to be divided. It took a war to do that.

Once Abraham Lincoln was elected President, and South Carolina became the first State to secede from the Union, its 1860 Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina explicitly and repeatedly states that the preservation and expansion of slavery was the primary reason for leaving the Union.

Mississippi, Georgia, and Texas likewise formally published Declarations of Causes that explicitly cited the preservation and expansion of slavery as their primary reason for seceding. States like Alabama and Virginia passed shorter ordinances of secession directly citing the hostile attitudes of the Federal Government toward their ``domestic institutions'' and the election of a sectional party based on antislavery platforms. It was clear they were seceding because of slavery, so that they could keep it.

After the war, Reconstruction sought to bind the country's wounds and expand the promise of its founding to the formerly enslaved, and Congress expanded suffrage to Black citizens, used Federal troops to vigorously defend it in response to a violent backlash across the South.

Congress passed three Reconstruction amendments designed to guarantee equal, civil, and legal rights to formerly enslaved Americans. All three granted Congress the power to enforce their provisions through legislation: the 13th Amendment finally abolishing slavery in the United States; the 14th Amendment guaranteeing citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the United States and prohibited any State from abridging the privileges or immunities of citizenship, applied due process of laws to the States, and provided equal protection under the law. It also provided for the reduction of representation in the House of Representatives of any State that disenfranchised any male citizens--and they meant male--over 21 years of age in Federal elections, except for participation in a rebellion or other crime; and the 15th Amendment prohibited the denial or abridgement of the right to vote on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

Yet, even with these amendments, Southern States resisted, resorting to paramilitary organizations like the Ku Klux Klan to terrorize Black citizens for daring to seek to vote, run for office, serve on juries, own property, open businesses, live in the wrong neighborhood, go to the wrong school, eventually drink from the wrong water fountain.

In 1870 and 1871, Congress passed the Enforcement Acts to allow the Federal Government to intervene when States or individuals infringed upon the rights provided in the 14th and 15th Amendments, and as a result Black men gained political power across the South.

In 1870, Senator Hiram Rhodes Revels of Mississippi and Representative Joseph H. Rainey of South Carolina became the first Black Members of Congress. A total of 22 Black men served in Congress between 1870 and 1901, including my predecessor, John Mercer Langston of Virginia's Fourth District, in 1890.

The political, social, and economic power gained by Blacks across the South during Reconstruction then faced a violent backlash, as the KKK and other groups began a reign of terror that relied extensively on lynchings.

To resolve the deadlocked Presidential election of 1876, the Compromise of 1877 brought Reconstruction to an end, the Federal Government removed its troops from the South, and widespread violence, propaganda, and voter suppression began.

In the final year of Reconstruction, the unraveling of Federal protection and voting rights began when the Supreme Court issued two opinions that gutted the Enforcement Act--United States v. Cruikshank and the United States v. Reese. Once Democrats regained control and Reconstruction ended in the South, Congress lost interest in Federal intervention and State disenfranchisement efforts.

Then the long arc toward moral justice began again. When President Harry Truman integrated the Army and when the civil rights movement began to gain ground, those Southern Democrats fled the Democratic Party and became Republicans.

Today, we see a very similar backlash to the backlash to progress that came after Reconstruction. With the first Court case gutting the Voting Rights Act, the Shelby decision, and now the Callais decision, we see a rollback of the Federal Government protecting voting rights. We see a weaponization of the very tools used to ensure that life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness was open to all roll back the progress made in civil rights and equal protection under the law. We see an administration that wants to tell one side of the story that I just told that doesn't want anything uncomfortable to be taught in our schools, that doesn't want anything about slavery mentioned in our public spaces, in our museums, or in our curriculum, that doesn't want that backlash taught.

Juneteenth gives us two opportunities: One, to celebrate the extraordinary resilience of Black Americans

who came here through the Middle Passage and bondage, and today are at historic high numbers in political leadership and representation. However, it also gives us an opportunity to acknowledge how we got here--the good, the bad, and the ugly; to recognize the pattern, to recognize the backlash to progress that always includes propaganda, whether it is the lie of white supremacy or the lie of stolen elections; violence, whether it is racial terror, lynchings, or insurrectionists showing up trying to stop for the second time in American history the results of an election they didn't like, or voter suppression, like a modern-day poll tax that we see in the SAVE Act.

We see the same backlash now, but we as the Congressional Black Caucus are here to say: We are not going back, we will fight the backlash, and we will continue the progress until when we say in our Pledge of Allegiance ``liberty and justice for all,'' it means all.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Georgia (Mrs. McBath).

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Ivey).

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time is remaining?

We the people, in order to form a more perfect union, as I mentioned, the history of our country is how we the people includes everyone. It is how to reconcile the ideals upon which this country was founded as articulated so beautifully by Thomas Jefferson, with the reality upon which this country was founded, as we grapple with the fact that Thomas Jefferson in writing that all men were created equal and endowed by their creator with the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness did not even include in that sentiment the human beings who labored, enslaved by him treated as property, including his own children.

I think of our country as a family, the American people as a family. Like any family, you cannot heal from family trauma if you don't talk about it, if you don't acknowledge it, if you don't acknowledge the pain of it, if you don't forgive and move forward.

Unfortunately, in our country, too often when we get close to that moment, when we get close to that healing moment, when we get close to that ideal becoming true for everyone, there is a backlash.

Every time in American history that we have begun to address the impact of over 300 years of slavery and Jim Crow on African Americans, there is a backlash.

The first one was the backlash to reconstruction. During reconstruction, when formerly enslaved men gained the right to vote after gaining citizenship, after being promised equal protection under the law, after electing members of their community to Congress--over 22--and after electing hundreds from their communities to State legislatures across the country, gaining social, political, and economic power, working together, in some cases, with White communities--like the Readjuster Party in Virginia, which worked together to create what was, at the time considered--with a small p-- the most progressive Constitution that Virginia ever had, where it finally promised, for the first time, every child in Virginia the right to a free public education. And the old power structure said: We have got to break that up.

To break up that coalition, the backlash used three things: propaganda, the lie of White supremacy, the lie of the Lost Cause narrative, that began to ignore what was actually said in articles of succession and say: Well, no, the war was about something else. It wasn't about slavery.

It began to use the lie of the Lost Cause narrative in iconography that said we need to put Black people back in their place by putting these gigantic monuments in front of the courthouse that says: Justice for all, except for you.

Then when they didn't get the message from the propaganda, they said: We are going to use violence through racial terror lynching, and 6,500 people, Black people, were murdered by White mobs through racial terror lynchings from 1865 through the 1960s--1968. Because if they don't get the message of the propaganda, we are going to use violence. We are going to use a mob that will start a race riot when people in Louisiana are trying to register to vote. We are going to use voter suppression because in a country--in a government of the people, of the people, for the people, the government will reflect the perspective and, therefore, meet the needs of the people who participate. If we can keep certain people from participating, we don't have to meet their needs.

So whether it was the literacy test that my great-grandfather had to take in Alabama in 1901, the character requirement he had to meet by finding three White men to vouch for his character to register to vote; whether it was the poll tax that my father and my grandfather had to pay in Tennessee; or voter intimidation and threats, the voter suppression is always part of the backlash.

We are in that backlash now, but the difference is the people who lived through Jim Crow are dying off. There is a concerted effort to keep their stories out of our schools, out of our public places, out of our museums through an executive order. Yet, history is a funny thing. Those stories, just like through all the traditions that were handed down generation to generation, we will continue to tell these stories, no matter how many executive orders are written. No matter how many orders the National Park Service is given to erase the names of people enslaved who worked at the President's house in Philadelphia, we will tell their story. We will work to continue to eliminate the impact of over 300 years of slavery and Jim Crow, even though we have an administration that wants to dismantle the progress we made in doing so, because that impact didn't go away with the wave of a magic wand with the Civil Rights Act or the Voting Rights Act. Now that we see efforts to unwind it, we are going to fight back.

I will close with this: I can't help but think of John Lewis. We are also going to come up on the anniversary of his passing. In his final words to us, John Lewis said: ``Democracy is not a state. It is an act, and each generation must do its part to build what we call the Beloved Community, a nation and world society at peace with itself.''

My parents, my grandparents, and my great-grandparents fought for that beloved community, and they used the ballot to elect people who would help to build that beloved community.

Now, the Supreme Court has basically said that the medicine for the cancer of racism has worked, so let's get rid of the medicine, that we don't need it anymore, but the cancer is still there.

We are going to fight back as the Congressional Black Caucus. We will not let our voices be silenced. We will not let our history be erased. We will not let our votes be suppressed. We will continue to fight until every American has the right, unencumbered by this government, to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. When we say in the Pledge of Allegiance, ``liberty and justice for all,'' it finally becomes true.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize and honor Dr. Emmanuel O. Omojokun on the occasion of his retirement after 37 years of extraordinary service to Virginia State University and the Commonwealth of Virginia.

For nearly four decades, Dr. Omojokun has exemplified the very best of public higher education through his leadership, scholarship, innovation, and unwavering commitment to student success. As Dean of the Reginald F. Lewis College of Business and Professor of Computer Information Systems, he has helped shape generations of students and has left an indelible mark on Virginia State University's academic and technological advancement.

Throughout his distinguished career, Dr. Omojokun held numerous leadership positions at Virginia State University, including Dean, Associate Dean, Department Chair, Director of the Institute on Computing, and faculty member. In each role, he demonstrated a steadfast commitment to academic excellence, institutional growth, and workforce development.

Among his many accomplishments, Dr. Omojokun established Virginia State University's Computer Science program in the 1990s, developing the curriculum, securing institutional approval, and personally teaching all of the courses offered during the program's inaugural year. He also spearheaded the development of the University's MBA program and created the Cyber Security and Forensics minor, helping prepare students for careers in some of the Nation's fastest-growing and most critical industries.

Dr. Omojokun also played a transformative role in modernizing the University's technological infrastructure. He designed the first computer network on the VSU campus, helped lead the installation of the University's first fiber optic backbone, and played a central role in bringing internet connectivity to the institution. His work strengthened both the University's operational capacity and its ability to prepare students for the demands of an increasingly digital world.

In addition to his academic leadership, Dr. Omojokun's scholarship and research efforts helped secure more than $25 million in funded proposals and research activity involving the National Science Foundation, the Department of Defense, and other federal partners. His contributions have advanced research, expanded educational opportunities, and strengthened partnerships between higher education, government, and industry.

Just as importantly, Dr. Omojokun has been a dedicated mentor, colleague, and servant leader. His guidance and support have helped countless faculty and students succeed, and his leadership has strengthened Virginia State University for generations to come.

Dr. Omojokun's career reflects the highest ideals of public service, higher education, and innovation. His legacy will endure not only through the programs and systems he helped build, but through the thousands of students, faculty, and community members whose lives he impacted.

Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join me in congratulating Dr. Omojokun on his retirement and in thanking him for his remarkable service to Virginia State University and the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Mr. Speaker, I rise on behalf of the Congressional Black Caucus to anchor this Special Order hour.

General Leave

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include any extraneous material on the subject of this Special Order.

Mr. Speaker, I rise on behalf of the Congressional Black Caucus to address another blight on American history.

Mr. Speaker, 250 years ago, Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence ``that all men were created equal and endowed by their creator with the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.'' Yet, Mr. Jefferson did not include the nearly half a million enslaved men, women, and children in the Thirteen Colonies, including at his beloved Monticello.

Eleven years later, the Constitution of the United States created a government by, of, and for we the people in order to form a more perfect Union, yet it considered the enslaved people three-fifths of a person for purposes of House of Representatives apportionment and taxation and excluded indigenous people altogether.

Since 1789, the history of our country has been one of each generation attempting to make true for all Americans the promise of American democracy embedded in our founding documents by expanding suffrage beyond White, landowning men. It is a story of cyclical trauma.

As the Civil War tore this country apart, Reconstruction sought to bind its wounds, and a violent backlash of white supremacy erased gains made by formerly enslaved men.

In the wake of the Civil War, Congress passed the Reconstruction amendments to end slavery, guarantee equal civil, legal, and voting rights to formerly enslaved Americans, and all three granted Congress the power to enforce their provisions.

Even with these amendments, southern States resisted, resorting to organizations like the Ku Klux Klan to terrorize Black citizens for seeking to vote, run for office, and serve on juries.

Congress passed the Enforcement Acts to allow the Federal Government to intervene. As a result, Black men gained political power across the South for the first time.

In 1870, Senator Hiram Revels of Mississippi and Representative Joseph Rainey of South Carolina became the first Black Members of Congress. A total of 22 Black men served in Congress between 1870 and 1901, including John Mercer Langston, who served in Virginia's Fourth Congressional District, a seat that I now proudly serve as the first Black woman elected from the Commonwealth of Virginia.

The political, social, and economic power gained by Blacks across the South during Reconstruction faced a violent backlash as the KKK and other similar organizations began a reign of terror across the South. The Compromise of 1877 ended a deadlock in the Presidential election of 1876 and brought Reconstruction to an end. As a result, widespread violence, fraud, corruption, gerrymandering, malapportionment, and legislation intended to disenfranchise Black voters went unchecked for 50 years.

Then the Supreme Court issued two decisions gutting the Enforcement Acts, one which arose from the tense aftermath of a Louisiana gubernatorial election and the Colfax massacre, one of the bloodiest racial confrontations of the Reconstruction era. States wasted no time adopting measures that technically applied to all voters but were designed and enforced to disenfranchise Black voters: literacy tests like the one my great-grandfather took in 1902 in Alabama to be able to vote, poll taxes like the ones my father and my grandfather paid in Tennessee, and more restrictive residency requirements. Yet, we marched on.

Then in August of 1965, nearly 100 years after passage of the 15th Amendment, Congress passed the most effective piece of legislation to enforce its provisions: the Voting Rights Act.

As Justice Kagan wrote in her dissent in the Callais decision that put the death knell in the coffin of the Voting Rights Act by gutting what is left of it. She wrote that the Voting Rights Act was one of the most consequential and amply justified exercises of Federal legislative power in our Nation's history.

Born of the literal blood of the Union soldiers and civil rights marchers, it ushered in awe-inspiring change bringing this Nation closer to fulfilling its ideals of democracy and racial equality.

It has been repeatedly and overwhelmingly reauthorized by the people's Representatives in Congress, and only we have the right to say when it is no longer needed.

Yet just as the backlash came in response to Reconstruction beginning with Shelby County v. Holder in 2013, the Roberts Court has systematically, from its ivory tower in Washington, gutted the Voting Rights Act.

Essentially the Court has said that the medicine for racism in our political system has worked so let's end the treatment. However, the cancer of racism has not gone away. It has been biding its time in remission, waiting for a chance to spread. Now we see in these same States that race to pass race-neutral poll taxes, literacy tests, character tests, and gerrymander maps to pack or crack Black voters to dilute their power are now moving with all deliberate speed to do the same thing again in Louisiana, Tennessee, Alabama, and South Carolina.

The Congressional Black Caucus will not stand idly by. As our colleague, John Lewis, said, democracy is not a state. It is an act that requires each generation to do its part to build the beloved community.

Our parents, our grandparents, our great-grandparents, and some of our members themselves did their part to fight the obstacles put in our way of participation in this government by, of, and for the people, and we will fight tooth and nail to do the same so that our children and our grandchildren don't have to fight these fights.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Clarke). Chairwoman Yvette Clarke is our fearless leader.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Alabama (Ms. Sewell), who picked up the baton from John Lewis.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Waters).

Mr. Speaker, I now yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Green) from Texas' Ninth District.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Wisconsin (Ms. Moore) from Wisconsin's Fourth District.

Mr. Speaker, I now yield to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Johnson) from Georgia's Fourth District.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Kelly), the Second District.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Georgia (Mrs. McBath), the Seventh District.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Brown), the 11th District.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from North Carolina (Mrs. Foushee), the Fourth District.

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time is remaining.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Ivey), representing the Fourth District.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Kamlager-Dove).

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Menefee).

Mr. Speaker, I took my oath of office 3 years ago on the Bible that my father kept his poll tax receipt in that he paid when he turned old enough to vote in Tennessee.

In my office is a book written by my great-grandfather. He tells a story. My great-grandfather was born on the plantation where his parents were enslaved. He went to register to vote in 1902 in Alabama. He was given a literacy test. He got all the questions right. The registrar turned to his assistant and said: ``I need more questions because this nigger got them all right.'' He was on a list of people not to register to vote because he organized Blacks in the community. Then he was told he had to find three White men to vouch for his character, and he did it.

Today, just like my great-grandfather, just like my father, I and the Congressional Black Caucus will fight any obstacle put in our way to ensure that we participate in this government by, of, and for the people.

We won't take this sitting down.

The Supreme Court may have dealt us a devastating blow, but we are going to get up, just like John Lewis got up after he was beaten in the head from marching across the bridge in Selma for the right to vote.

This is not the end of the war. This is only the beginning where we will ensure that liberty and justice for all means all; that a government by, of, and for the people includes all the people.

We will not be silenced.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.