Recognizing 155th Anniversary of 13th Amendment

Floor Speech

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Mrs. BEATTY. Mr. Speaker, I thank my fellow Congressional Black Caucus members for coming together this evening to recognize and acknowledge the 155th anniversary of the ratification of the 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Mr. Speaker, 1865 was certainly a turning point in the history of our nation, with the end of the Civil War and the assassination of one of our greatest presidents, Abraham Lincoln.

But the ideal over which the Civil War was fought and President Lincoln died was not fulfilled until late in that year--155 years ago yesterday, in fact.

When Georgia became the 27th state to ratify the 13th Amendment, on December 6, 1865, our country formally put an end to the practice of chattel slavery in this country.

In the following years, Congress and the states added to the Reconstruction Era Civil Rights Amendments, with the 14th Amendment in 1868, providing for equal protection and due process, and the 15th Amendment in 1870, guaranteeing the right to vote regardless of race.

These constitutional amendments were absolutely critical in our pursuit of a more perfect union where all men, and women, are created equal.

In the first four-score-and-9 years of our Republic, slavery was allowed and, indeed, enshrined in our Constitution.

While that changed with the 13th Amendment, over the last 155 years, we have still had to struggle for true equality.

The 13th Amendment may have ended slavery, but it did not stop the Black Codes or Jim Crow.

The 14th Amendment promised equal protection, but it didn't prevent 100 years of segregation.

The 15th Amendment says that the right to vote shall not be denied or abridged, but it hasn't kept tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people of color from being disenfranchised at the hands of voter suppression tactics.

That is why I think it is so important that we do things like this-- come together to talk about our history and the steps we need to take to complete the work.

Despite the progress over the years, we have not yet solved the problem of systemic racism.

We have work yet to do to make sure that a child's future isn't determined by her zip code; to overcome disparities in our health care system that have been exacerbated by a global pandemic; to prevent innocent Black men from being killed in the street.

As we approach another milestone--the 50th Anniversary of the creation of the Congressional Black Caucus--I am proud to join with my colleagues in the CBC to do that hard work, and to finally ratify the 13th Amendment, not just in law, but in truth.

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