Cbc Supports Investing in Infrastructure

Floor Speech

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Mr. CLYBURN. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Ohio for yielding to me. I thank her for the tremendous leadership she has given as chair of the Congressional Black Caucus. I appreciate her work, and I appreciate her friendship.

Madam Speaker, I woke up this morning to several headlines, one of which came from a little town in my congressional district, Summerton, South Carolina.

Those who have studied a little bit of our history will know that Summerton is a little town that started our Nation on the road to Brown v. Board of Education. It was Briggs v. Elliott, the first case to challenge segregated schools in this country, and that case became one of five that have become known as Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas.

But that is not why Summerton, South Carolina, was in the news today. It was in the news today because that little town's entire water system has failed. All the people in that town have been subjected, over the last several weeks, to poison in their water system.

People were getting sick. Nobody knew what was causing it. People were being diagnosed with all kinds of things, like swimmer's ear when they had never been in a swimming pool.

Today, the estimated cost of fixing their water system is more than the entire budget of the town.

Summerton is just one example of what is happening all over this country. Little towns like Summerton, rural communities, schools, childcare centers, you name it, the people in that little town need their infrastructure fixed.

Now, that is traditional.

But I will tell you something else about the little town of Summerton: Scott's Branch High School, the school where Brown v. Board of Education started, that is what the school was, Scott's Branch High School; it is still there. It is the third building, but the school is still named the same. Less than 34 percent of the students in that school district are connected to the internet.

Now that means in that little school that challenged segregation years ago because they were not being adequately educated--and I can talk all night about this--kids walking 9.4 miles to school every day one way and 9.4 miles back home. They weren't suing to integrate the schools, all they wanted was a school bus. These are the basic things. And you look at that school district today, they want to be connected to the internet.

And we have colleagues in this place who tell us that they are all for an infrastructure bill so long as it confines itself to traditional infrastructure issues like roads and bridges.

Well, we need roads and bridges, but we need water and sewerage. We need to deepen our ports, fix our rail systems. The greatest country on Earth needs to do something about its rail system.

And I remember when rail was not traditional infrastructure. Of course, I wasn't around, but I remember from my studies when rail was not traditional infrastructure. It wasn't until Abraham Lincoln gave us the transcontinental railroad that rail was considered infrastructure. The interstate highway was not infrastructure. Dwight Eisenhower gave us the interstate highway, and then it became traditional infrastructure.

Today broadband has got to be a big part of infrastructure. COVID-19 has exposed some real flaws in our system, and when it comes to education we have many children who have already lost a full year of school; some are threatening to lose a second year of school. What happens to a sixth or seventh grader when they lose 2 years of school?

But the children who had the internet stayed in touch with education, which tells me that in that school district there in Summerton, South Carolina, where less than 40 percent of the students are connected to the internet, they run the risk of 60 percent of their children losing another year of school. They will be no better off than those students were back when Brown v. Board of Education was decided in 1954.

So this infrastructure bill has got to be about more than what is traditional. It has got to be looking toward the future. And it seems to me that we, as the greatest country in the world, need to look to the future. What do we want for our children and our grandchildren? We should not tie ourselves to that which is traditional. Traditional alone means what has been. We need to be futuristic.

Now before I close, Madam Speaker, I want to share a little story. I often tell this story. Back when the rural electric co-ops were celebrating their 50th anniversary of rural electrification, they decided to publish a tabletop book, and they called the book, ``The Next Greatest Thing.'' And the reason they called the book, ``The Next Greatest Thing'' is because one night a farmer in rural Tennessee stood up in church and said to them, brothers and sisters, let me tell you something, the greatest thing on Earth is to have the love of God in your heart, but the next greatest thing is to have electricity in your house.

Think about that. Broadband will do for the 21st century what electricity did for rural America in the 20th century. And this is our best opportunity to bring rural America in line with the rest of us and make sure that children will not be limited in their educational pursuits by where they live. We are too great a nation for that.

This is a great country. It doesn't have to be made great again. What we have got to do is make this country's greatness accessible and affordable for all of its citizens.

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