E1548 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD Ð Extensions of Remarks July 29, 1997 Today we add to his many accolades the ments. Each family of freed slaves was to be officials followed Sherman's lead, realizing highest honor the college can accord and given 40 acres and the loan of an Army mule that land was the only hedge against starva- alumnus for service. For the impact of his to work the land. tion and renewed bondage. teaching on the lives of hundreds of our stu- The confiscations were in accordance with dents and for his role in developing one of Mr. Staples' article describes that historical Federal law. If sustained and accelerated, the finest accounting programs in the na- fact from the personal viewpoint of his own the land grants would have created black tion, we are proud to present the LaSalle family's experience. I commend him for his capital and independence almost imme- Medal to Joseph R. Coppola, Ph.D., '40, pro- contribution to the dialog on race in America. diately and precluded much of the corrosive fessor emeritus of accounting. The article and the bill with its 21 cosponsors poverty that still grips the black South. President Andrew Johnson was nearly im- f follow. peached, in part for obstructing Congress on [From the New York Times, July 21, 1997] TRIBUTE TO COL. FRED MILLS Reconstruction. Meanwhile, he canceled Spe- FORTY ACRES AND A MULE cial Field Order 15, returning land to white (By Brent Staples) owners and condemning blacks to de facto HON. IKE SKELTON Bill Clinton has earned a boat-load of scorn slavery. OF MISSOURI since suggesting that he might apologize for In many places, the eviction process was IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES slavery, as some in Congress have suggested. long and bloody. As the ex-slave Sarah Debro said of the period: ``Slavery was a bad thing, Tuesday, July 29, 1997 Critics from both left and right argue that such an apology would be trivializing, and freedom, of the kind we got with nothing Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Speaker, today I pay empty, arrogant and racially divisive. The to live on, was bad. Two snakes full of poi- tribute to a distinguished Missourian. Col. Fred dominant view, typified by the columnist son. One lying with his head pointed north, the other with his head pointing south. Mills, a 30-year veteran of the highway patrol, Charles Krauthammer, is that there is essen- tially nothing to discuss, since the Civil War Both bit the nigger and they was both bad.'' is retiring on September 1, 1997. Colonel Mills My father and uncles grew up steeped in ac- has been the superintendent of the Missouri closed the issue and the slavers and the enslaved are long since dead. But all the countings like this one. For 250 years African-Americans were de- State Highway Patrol since September 1993. noise suggests the issue is very much alive. prived of freedom, basic education and the The focus of his administration as super- The terms of Emancipation are nearly as ex- right to accumulate wealth, which they intendent was ``Working Together.'' He worked plosive today as during the 1860's, when they could have passed on to their descendants. to forge partnerships between the highway pa- dominated public consciousness and nearly This history would have left a wound in any trol and other law enforcement agencies as tore the Government apart. case. But the wound is open and running be- The facts of the period have been papered well as between the highway patrol and the cause the country refused to atone materi- over in myth. These days, every school child citizens of Missouri. ally when it had the chance. In that sense, at thinks that Abraham Lincoln freed the Colonel Mills was a driving force behind the least, my Uncle Mack is right about the slaves at one fell swoopÐand for moral rea- partnership formed between highway patrol apology. No amount of talk can alter the sons. In fact, the Emancipation Proclama- past. and the Kansas City and St. Louis Police De- tion freed only the slaves in rebellious partments which put highway patrol officers on states. Lincoln himself called it a military the streets with city officers in 1994 and 1995. tactic, acknowledging that moral issues were H.R. 40 The joint operation lowered the violent crime in no way involved. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Rep- rate in both cities. The slavers and the enslaved are certainly resentatives of the United States of America in Colonel Mills also encouraged a process gone from the scene. But African-American Congress assembled, which moved uniformed officers from office families that have shown even a casual inter- SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. jobs back into field positions by training civilian est in history can give chapter and verse on This Act may be cited as the ``Commission relatives who were born in slavery or just to Study Reparation Proposals for African- personnel to perform office functions. Nearly afterward and the costs they paid. In the 70 officers were put back on the highways Americans Act''. Staples family, for example, mine is the first SEC. 2. FINDINGS AND PURPOSE. during Colonel Mills' tenure. generation to come of age without a flesh (a) FINDINGS.ÐThe Congress finds thatÐ Colonel Mills' dedication to the highway pa- and blood former slave somewhere at the ex- (1) approximately 4,000,000 Africans and trol and the citizens of Missouri exemplify the tended family table. That people in their 40's their descendants were enslaved in the Unit- highest tradition of service. His experience will have this experience makes the issue a cur- ed States and the colonies that became the be sorely missed. I know that the other Mem- rent one indeed. United States from 1619 to 1865; bers of this body join me in expressing our My maternal great-grandmother, Luella (2) the institution of slavery was constitu- Holmes Patterson, was born of a former tionally and statutorily sanctioned by the deepest gratitude to Colonel Mills and our best slave and her masterÐand shipped off the wishes for his retirement. Government of the United States from 1769 plantation when the wife got wind of her. As through 1865; f a grade schooler, I visited Luella often in (3) the slavery that flourished in the Unit- Hollins, Va. A few towns away lay the farm ``FORTY ACRES AND A MULE'' ed States constituted an immoral and inhu- of my paternal great-grandfather, John Wes- mane deprivation of Africans' life, liberty, ley Staples, who was conceived in slavery as African citizenship rights, and cultural her- HON. JOHN CONYERS, JR. well and born July 4, 1865, at the dawn of itage, and denied them the fruits of their Emancipation. He died 10 years before my OF MICHIGAN own labor; and birth but was remembered to me in stories (4) sufficient inquiry has not been made IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES and pictures. As recently as 10 years ago, he into the effects of the institution of slavery Tuesday, July 29, 1997 and his wife, Eliza, were the subject of a on living African-Americans and society in pamphlet, written for a family reunion. Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I rise to pay the United States. John Wesley met Emancipation with his (b) PURPOSE.ÐThe purpose of this Act is to tribute to an ``Editorial Notebook'' commentary whole life still in front of him. But among establish a commission toÐ by Brent Staples in the July 21 issue of the his neighbors and in-laws were ex-slaves who (1) examine the institution of slavery New York Times. came to freedom landless and old or simply which existed from 1619 through 1865 within In 1989 I first proposed that a commission broken by the experience. My uncle Mack, the United States and the colonies that be- be created to study the institution of slavery in who will be 80 in December, remembers them came the United States, including the extent this country from 1619 to 1865, and subse- well. When I asked him about the apology to which the Federal and State Governments brewing in Congress, Uncle Mack could bare- quent de jure and de facto racial and eco- constitutionally and statutorily supported ly contain himself: ``They can keep the apol- the institution of slavery; nomic discrimination against African-Ameri- ogy. What good is it? They promised us 40 (2) examine de jure and de facto discrimi- cans, as well as the impact of these forces on acres and the mule. None of our people ever nation against freed slaves and their de- living African-Americans, and to make rec- got that.'' scendants from the end of the Civil War to ommendations to the Congress on appropriate ``Forty acres and a mule,'' of course, is a the present, including economic, political, remedies. rallying cry from 1865. It originated during and social discrimination; One of the remedies in this Congress is Sherman's March to the Sea. Overwhelmed (3) examine the lingering negative effects H.R. 40, with the number of the resolution se- by black families that abandoned the planta- of the institution of slavery and the dis- tions to follow him, Sherman issued Special lected for the ``Forty Acres and a Mule'' rally- crimination described in paragraph (2) on Field Order 15, declaring the Georgia Sea Is- living African-Americans and on society in ing cry of 1865 when Civil War Gen. Tecum- lands and a strip of South Carolina rice the United States; seh Sherman issued Special Field Order 15, country as black settlements.