{"database": "openregs", "table": "congressional_record", "rows": [["CREC-2025-06-26-pt1-PgH2976-2", "2025-06-26", 119, 1, null, null, "EMANCIPATION DAY", "HOUSE", "HOUSE", "ALLOTHER", "H2976", "H2976", "[{\"name\": \"Stacey E. Plaskett\", \"role\": \"speaking\"}]", "[{\"congress\": \"119\", \"type\": \"HR\", \"number\": \"1\"}, {\"congress\": \"119\", \"type\": \"HR\", \"number\": \"1\"}]", "171 Cong. Rec. H2976", "Congressional Record, Volume 171 Issue 110 (Thursday, June 26, 2025)\n\n[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 110 (Thursday, June 26, 2025)]\n[House]\n[Page H2976]\nFrom the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]\n\n                            EMANCIPATION DAY\n\n  (Ms. Plaskett of the Virgin Islands was recognized to address the\nHouse for 5 minutes.)\n  Ms. PLASKETT. Mr. Speaker, as Americans celebrate this Independence\nDay, July Fourth, the day the Founders declared their intention to be\nfree from England, the day before in the Virgin Islands, July 3, we\ncelebrate one of the most historic and spectacular days for those of us\nwho have ancestral ties or call the Virgin Islands our home.\n  It is the commemoration of our emancipation because on that day, July\n3, 1848, the Virgin Islands became one of only two places in the\nWestern Hemisphere for individuals to gain their freedom from\nenslavement by organized violent overthrow.\n  On that day in 1848, after months of organization and planning,\nthousands of enslaved people, including my ancestors, left plantations\nthroughout the island of St. Croix and converged at Fort Frederik in\nwhat was the Danish West Indies and demanded their freedom.\n  Unfortunately, while the Governor of the time, Peter Von Scholten,\ndeclared all formerly enslaved in the Danish West Indies free, we now\nknow that freedom is not easily free, and a declaration without full\nrights and privileges is a hollow declaration.\n  Even today, anyone who decides to live in the Virgin Islands must\ngive up a portion of their freedom: the right to vote for President,\nthe right to have full voting representation in both Chambers of this\nbody, and the right to receive SSI. The list goes on and on.\n  How often when asking for equal treatment, even tax law, I have to\nremind people that we are not foreign. We are, in fact, a possession of\nthe United States, drafted into wars, loving this country with no path\nto full inclusion. Imagine if Wyoming or Iowa or Vermont were\nindefinitely to remain territories with no path to full citizenship.\n  In the 116th and 117th Congress, language was added into H.R. 1 which\ncreated a Congressional Task Force to not only create a recommendation\nto a pathway for greater inclusion for the territories and voting\nparticipation in this body but also to examine what has been the cost\nto the people economically, socially, politically, for hundreds of\nyears not having those rights, including Puerto Rico, Guam, American\nSamoa, and the Northern Mariana Islands.\n  I will be introducing this legislation this term, and I ask my\ncolleagues to join.\n\n                              {time}  1030\n\n  Mr. Speaker, let me say to my fellow Virgin Islanders: We, as well,\nhave work to do in our own freedom. As the prayer and chant says, ``We\nmust free our minds from mental slavery,'' the chains that bound us in\na psychological and cultural legacy that persist long after the\nphysical chains are broken. Liberation involves more than legal\nfreedom. We Virgin Islanders have had our legal freedom for almost two\ncenturies, and yet we still struggle with violent crime against one\nanother, crumbling sociopolitical infrastructure, and blaming others\nfor the state of our community instead of assigning ourselves work to\nmake it better.\n  True emancipation and liberation require breaking free from\ninternalized oppression, self-limiting beliefs, and our own social\nsystems that continue to marginalize ourselves and our children.\n  Our ancestors made the brave, bold decision to take a history of\nbloodshed, pain, and inhumanity--a history of being stolen and\ntrafficked from Africa to the West, and exposed to some of the most\ninhumane and grueling conditions--and transformed it into achievement\nof their freedom.\n  The environment of self-hatred and hatred of others that persists on\nour islands must stop. That is not the sacrifices our ancestors made.\nOur ancestors could not have accomplished the incredible feat of\ndefeating the Danish Army with every odd stacked against them without\nbeing unified. Unity and love are inseparable.\n  Let this Emancipation Day serve as both a commemoration and a call to\naction for us to honor our ancestors who resisted and survived as we do\nthe work of full liberation. Let this day remind us that freedom is\nboth a historical achievement and an ongoing process of our individual\nand collective self-determination, progress, and development.\n  Blessed Emancipation Day.\n\n                          ____________________"]], "columns": ["granule_id", "date", "congress", "session", "volume", "issue", "title", "chamber", "granule_class", "sub_granule_class", "page_start", "page_end", "speakers", "bills", "citation", "full_text"], "primary_keys": ["granule_id"], "primary_key_values": ["CREC-2025-06-26-pt1-PgH2976-2"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 44.585388037376106, "source": "Federal Register API & Regulations.gov API", "source_url": "https://www.federalregister.gov/developers/api/v1", "license": "Public Domain (U.S. Government data)", "license_url": "https://www.regulations.gov/faq"}