"This is your history": Cori Bush schools Congress on the nation's dark past and present
Washington DC - Missouri Rep. Cori Bush made a powerful speech on the House floor on Tuesday to decry attempts to strip Black history from US public school education and to demand reparative justice for Black Americans.
During the House's Morning Hour, in which politicians can speak on any issue on their mind, Bush gave a gut-wrenching speech to "tell the truth" about US history – even as rightwing lawmakers seek to suppress "critical race theory" in public schools.
"If America's students are not taught the truth in school, we can at least make the floor of the House of Representatives their classroom," she opened before turning to the dark history of the kidnapping and enslavement of Black people.
"Our Black ancestors [...] were the 12 million Africans who were shackled, branded, and packed into the bowels of slave ships during what is known as the Middle Passage, where 2 million Africans died," she said.
Bought and sold into slavery, they faced extreme dehumanization and cruelty. If they tried to escape that inhumane treatment, they were hunted down, brutally punished, and, in some cases, murdered.
The US federal government is entirely complicit in that system of abuse, Bush said: "More than 1,700 congressmen once enslaved Black people. 1,700 people who routinely cast votes, cultivating, conserving, and codifying white supremacy did not view Black people as human beings."
"Our presidents owned. Our presidents sold. Our presidents enslaved Black people," she added.
Bush challenges young Americans to speak up
But politicians weren't the only ones who participated in the cruelty, according to Bush: "What we must remember is that for every Black person they hung from a tree, dozens of white people came to celebrate."
"When our students don't learn about these lynchings in school, it's not to just deny us our justice," she continued, pointing to an image of two Black men hanging from a tree surrounded by white people smiling and pointing.
"It's because racist policymakers don't want white children to know that that may be great-grandpa smiling in the picture and pointing up at our ancestors dangling as strange fruit."
Bush then shared an important message for young white Americans: "This is your history. The atrocities perpetuated against Black people for generations were committed by your ancestors."
"So what will you do to help repair the damage?" she asked. "What will you do to help us achieve reparations for the harm done?"
She urged young people to speak to their school districts and demand the truth rather than a "whitewashed" version of history.
Cover photo: IMAGO / MediaPunch