[Congressional Bills 107th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 5034 Introduced in House (IH)]







107th CONGRESS
  2d Session
                                H. R. 5034

To authorize the President to posthumously award a gold medal on behalf 
of the Congress in honor of Rev. Joseph A. De Laine, in recognition of 
                    his contributions to the Nation.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                             June 27, 2002

Mr. Clyburn (for himself, Mr. Brown of South Carolina, Mr. DeMint, Mr. 
 Graham, Mr. Spratt, and Mr. Wilson of South Carolina) introduced the 
   following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Financial 
                                Services

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
To authorize the President to posthumously award a gold medal on behalf 
of the Congress in honor of Rev. Joseph A. De Laine, in recognition of 
                    his contributions to the Nation.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SEC. 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Rev. Joseph A. De Laine 
Congressional Gold Medal Act''.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

     The Congress finds the following:
            (1) The Reverend Joseph Armstrong De Laine, one of the true 
        heroes of the civil rights struggle, led a crusade to break 
        down barriers in education in South Carolina.
            (2) The efforts of Rev. Joseph A. De Laine led to the 
        desegregation of public schools in the United States, but 
        forever scarred his own life.
            (3) In 1949, Rev. Joseph A. De Laine, a minister and 
        principal, organized African-American parents in Summerton, 
        South Carolina, to petition the school board for a bus for 
        black students, who had to walk up to 10 miles through corn and 
        cotton fields to attend a segregated school, while the white 
        children in the school district rode to and from school in nice 
        clean buses.
            (4) In 1950, these same parents sued to end public school 
        segregation in Briggs v. Elliott (342 U.S. 350 (1952)), one of 
        five cases that collectively led to the landmark 1954 Supreme 
        Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education (347 U.S. 483 
        (1954)).
            (5) Because of his participation in the desegregation 
        movement, Rev. Joseph A. De Laine was subjected to repeated 
        acts of domestic terror, in which--
                    (A) he, along with two sisters and a niece, lost 
                their jobs;
                    (B) he fought off an angry mob;
                    (C) he received frequent death threats; and
                    (D) his church and his home were burned to the 
                ground.
            (6) In October 1955, after Rev. Joseph A. De Laine 
        relocated to Florence County in South Carolina, shots were 
        fired at the De Laine home, and because Reverend De Laine fired 
        back, to mark the car, he was charged with assault and battery 
        with intent to kill.
            (7) The shooting incident drove Rev. Joseph A. De Laine 
        from South Carolina to Buffalo, New York, where he organized an 
        African Methodist Episcopal Church.
            (8) Believing that he would not be treated fairly by the 
        judicial system in South Carolina if he returned there, Rev. 
        Joseph A. De Laine told the Federal Bureau of Investigation, 
        ``I am not running from justice but injustice''.
            (9) Rev. Joseph A. De Laine died in Charlotte, North 
        Carolina in 1974.
            (10) It was not until 2000--26 years after his death and 45 
        years after the October 1955 incident--that Reverend De Laine 
        was cleared of all charges relating to the incident.
            (11) Rev. Joseph A. De Laine was a humble and fearless man 
        who showed the Nation that all people, regardless of the color 
        of their skin, deserve a first-rate education, a lesson from 
        which the Nation has benefited immeasurably.
            (12) Rev. Joseph A. De Laine deserves rightful recognition 
        for the suffering that he and his family endured to teach the 
        Nation one of the great civil rights lessons of the last 
        century.

SEC. 3. CONGRESSIONAL GOLD MEDAL.

    (a) Presentation Authorized.--The President is authorized to 
present, on behalf of the Congress, a gold medal of appropriate design 
to Joseph De Laine Jr. to posthumously honor his father, Rev. Joseph 
Anthony De Laine, in recognition of Reverend De Laine's contributions 
to the Nation.
    (b) Design and Striking.--For the purpose of the presentation 
referred to in subsection (a), the Secretary of the Treasury (hereafter 
in this Act referred to as the ``Secretary'') shall strike a gold medal 
with suitable emblems, devices, and inscriptions, to be determined by 
the Secretary.

SEC. 4. DUPLICATE MEDALS.

     Under such regulations as the Secretary may prescribe, the 
Secretary may strike and sell duplicates in bronze of the gold medal 
struck under section 3 at a price sufficient to cover the costs of the 
bronze medals (including labor, materials, dies, use of machinery, and 
overhead expenses) and the costs of the gold medal.

SEC. 5. NATIONAL MEDALS.

     The medals struck under this Act are national medals for purposes 
of chapter 51 of title 31, United States Code.

SEC. 6. FUNDING AND PROCEEDS OF SALE.

    (a) Authorization.--There is authorized to be charged against the 
United States Mint Public Enterprise Fund an amount not to exceed 
$30,000 to pay for the cost of the medals authorized by this Act.
    (b) Proceeds of Sale.--Amounts received from the sale of duplicate 
bronze medals under section 4 shall be deposited in the United States 
Mint Public Enterprise Fund.
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