Brown V. Board of Education National Historical Park Expansion and Redesignation Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. CLYBURN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of S. 270, the Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site Expansion Act. I thank Senator Chris Coons for his leadership securing the Senate's unanimous support for passage of this important legislation earlier this month. I am proud to lead the legislation here in the House along with our bipartisan cosponsors, Congresswoman Lisa Blunt Rochester, Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, and Congressman Bob Good.

As a former teacher of history and a student of history, I believe in the value of learning from our past. Many Americans don't know that the landmark Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision, that desegregated public schools in 1954, combined legal challenges from four States and the District of Columbia. I represent one of those States and was fortunate to know some of the petitioners from Clarendon County, South Carolina, who challenged the separate but equal laws. Many of their photographs hang in my congressional office.

In 2004, I wrote, in cooperation with the Palmetto Conservation Foundation, the book ``Uncommon Courage: The Story of Briggs v. Elliott, South Carolina's Unsung Civil Rights Battle.'' That same year, I was proud to lead the effort to present the Congressional Gold Medal of Honor to the leaders of that challenge--Harry and Eliza Briggs, Levi Pearson, and Reverend Joseph A. DeLaine.

Their case, Briggs v. Elliott, was the first of those cases that later became Brown v. Board. The subsequent cases were in Delaware, Virginia, Washington, D.C., and, of course, Topeka, Kansas.

Today there is a National Parks site that was created by Congress in 1992 in Topeka that tells the story of the ordinary people who took this extraordinary action to ensure their children had equal educational opportunities. However, the other communities involved in this historic effort have no National Park Service presence acknowledging their contributions.

This legislation will right that wrong. It expands the Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site to include locations in each of the communities that were part of the lawsuit. When writing this legislation, I worked with the National Trust Fund for Historic Preservation who engaged with the communities that would be impacted to solicit their input.

With the enactment of this legislation, the Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site will become more than the Monroe School building in Topeka. It will add the Summerton School and Scott's Branch School in Summerton, South Carolina, to represent the Briggs v. Elliott case; the Hockessin Colored School No. 107 and Howard High School in Wilmington, Delaware, to represent Belton v. Gebhart; the former Robert Russa Moton High School, now a museum, in Farmville, Virginia, to represent Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County; and the John Philip Sousa Junior High School in the District of Columbia to represent Boiling v. Sharpe.

Each of these sites will tell the story of how these communities fought to overturn the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson decision that established the separate but equal doctrine. When Brown v. Board of Education overturned that decision and ended generations of inadequate education for Black children, constitutional scholar Louis H. Pollak hailed it as ``probably the most important American Government act of any kind since the Emancipation Proclamation.''

Mr. Speaker, I urge all Members of this august body to follow the Senate's lead and vote in favor of expanding the Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site to ensure that all the communities that contributed to this landmark decision receive proper recognition.

Having geographically dispersed historic sites that tell this great story will enable more students to learn from the past and understand the importance of making America's greatness accessible and affordable to all.

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