[Congressional Bills 116th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. Con. Res. 37 Introduced in Senate (IS)]

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116th CONGRESS
  2d Session
S. CON. RES. 37

  Honoring the life and work of Louis Lorenzo Redding, whose lifelong 
     dedication to civil rights and service stand as an example of 
                       leadership for all people.


_______________________________________________________________________


                   IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

                           February 27, 2020

   Mr. Coons (for himself, Mr. Rubio, and Mr. Carper) submitted the 
following concurrent resolution; which was referred to the Committee on 
                             the Judiciary

_______________________________________________________________________

                         CONCURRENT RESOLUTION


 
  Honoring the life and work of Louis Lorenzo Redding, whose lifelong 
     dedication to civil rights and service stand as an example of 
                       leadership for all people.

Whereas Louis Lorenzo Redding (referred to in this preamble as ``Louis L. 
        Redding'') was born on October 25, 1901, in Alexandria, Virginia, the 
        eldest of 5 children born to Lewis Alfred and Mary Ann Holmes Redding;
Whereas Louis L. Redding was an educator, attorney, and lifelong activist who 
        worked on civil rights and educational issues;
Whereas Louis L. Redding graduated from Howard High School in 1919, which, at 
        that time, was the only public high school for African-American students 
        in Delaware;
Whereas Louis L. Redding received a bachelor's degree from Brown University in 
        1923;
Whereas, while at Brown University, Louis L. Redding and 7 other men established 
        a chapter of the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity in Providence, Rhode Island;
Whereas, in 1923, Louis L. Redding was the first African American awarded the 
        prestigious William Gaston Prize for excellence in oratory and, as a 
        result, delivered a commencement speech at Brown University;
Whereas Louis L. Redding became an English instructor and the vice principal of 
        Fessenden Academy outside of Ocala, Florida, the oldest continuously 
        operated school originally for African-American students in Florida;
Whereas Louis L. Redding left Fessenden Academy to teach English in the high 
        school division of Morehouse College, a historically Black college in 
        Atlanta, Georgia;
Whereas, after 2 years of teaching, Louis L. Redding enrolled in Harvard Law 
        School in 1925;
Whereas, in 1926, as a law student at Harvard Law School, Louis L. Redding was 
        ejected from the Wilmington, Delaware, municipal court while protesting 
        segregation of the courtroom;
Whereas that municipal court was the first court in Wilmington, Delaware, to 
        desegregate its gallery;
Whereas Louis L. Redding graduated from Harvard Law School in 1928 as the only 
        African American in a class of about 200 students;
Whereas, in 1929, Louis L. Redding became the first African American to pass the 
        Delaware bar;
Whereas Louis L. Redding remained the only African-American lawyer in Delaware 
        for 26 years;
Whereas, in 1949, Louis L. Redding was admitted to the Delaware Bar Association, 
        an organization from which Louis L. Redding had been excluded for 20 
        years after having passed the Delaware bar;
Whereas, in 1950, Louis L. Redding and Jack Greenberg, a lawyer for the NAACP 
        Legal Defense and Educational Fund, filed the case of Parker v. 
        University of Delaware to protest the segregated college system in 
        Delaware;
Whereas, in August 1950, Chancellor Collins Seitz ruled in Parker v. University 
        of Delaware, 75 A.2d 225 (Del. Ch. 1950), that, under Plessy v. 
        Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896), the State of Delaware violated the 
        Constitution of the United States by offering a separate but not equal 
        education in the State college and university system;
Whereas, in 1951, Louis L. Redding and Jack Greenberg filed--

    (1) Belton v. Gebhart, a case that concerned the desegregation of high 
schools; and

    (2) Bulah v. Gebhart, a case that concerned the desegregation of 
elementary schools;

Whereas, in 1952, the Belton and Bulah cases were consolidated in the Delaware 
        Court of Chancery, where, in Belton v. Gebhart, 87 A.2d 862 (Del. Ch. 
        1952), Chancellor Collins Seitz ordered the Delaware State Board of 
        Education to open all schools in Delaware to African Americans;
Whereas the Delaware State Board of Education appealed the decision of 
        Chancellor Collins Seitz to the Supreme Court of Delaware, which upheld 
        the decision of the Chancellor in Gebhart v. Belton, 91 A.2d 137 (Del. 
        1952);
Whereas the case then came before the Supreme Court of the United States on a 
        writ of certiorari to the Supreme Court of Delaware;
Whereas Louis L. Redding and Jack Greenberg argued the case alongside Thurgood 
        Marshall, the first African-American Justice of the Supreme Court of the 
        United States, as the last of a group of 5 school desegregation cases 
        heard and decided by the Supreme Court of the United States in Brown v. 
        Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (1954), and Bolling v. 
        Sharpe, 347 U.S. 497 (1954);
Whereas, on May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court of the United States held in Brown 
        v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (1954), that separate 
        educational facilities for racial minorities violated the Equal 
        Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the 
        United States, thus holding that school segregation was 
        unconstitutional;
Whereas, on February 21, 1961, Louis L. Redding argued to the Supreme Court of 
        the United States in the case of Burton v. Wilmington Parking Authority 
        that a private company with a relationship to a government agency was in 
        violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the 
        Constitution of the United States if the private company refused to 
        provide service to a customer on the basis of race;
Whereas, in April 1961, the Supreme Court of the United States established the 
        principle of State action in Burton v. Wilmington Parking Authority, 365 
        U.S. 715 (1961), and ruled that a private entity may not discriminate on 
        the basis of race if the State has approved, encouraged, or facilitated 
        the relevant private conduct;
Whereas, in 1965, Louis L. Redding became a public defender for the State of 
        Delaware and fought for the rights of poor clients for nearly 20 years 
        thereafter;
Whereas, in 1984, Louis L. Redding retired after 55 years of practicing law;
Whereas Louis L. Redding was a member of many national organizations, 
        including--

    (1) the National Bar Association;

    (2) the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People;

    (3) the National Lawyers Guild; and

    (4) the Emergency Civil Liberties Committee;

Whereas Louis L. Redding was awarded the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Award 
        by the National Education Association and an honorary Doctor of Law 
        degree from Brown University;
Whereas the University of Delaware established the Louis L. Redding Chair for 
        the Study of Law and Public Policy in the School of Education;
Whereas Pulitzer Prize winning author Richard Kluger described Louis L. Redding 
        as a man who fought, largely alone, for the civil rights and liberties 
        of Black Delawareans;
Whereas former Secretary of Transportation William T. Coleman, Jr., stated that 
        the giants of the civil rights movement were Houston Hastings, Louis L. 
        Redding, and Thurgood Marshall;
Whereas, on September 29, 1998, Louis L. Redding died at the age of 96 in Lima, 
        Pennsylvania;
Whereas Louis L. Redding broke down barriers and paved the way for countless 
        African-American lawyers to follow in his footsteps, including--

    (1) Theophilus Nix, Sr., the second African American to pass the 
Delaware bar exam;

    (2) Joshua W. Martin III, the first African-American president of the 
Delaware Bar Association;

    (3) Frank H. Hollis, the first African-American attorney to represent 
corporate clients in Delaware;

    (4) Paulette Sullivan Moore, the first African-American woman to pass 
the Delaware bar exam;

    (5) Leonard L. Williams, the second African-American judge in Delaware;

    (6) Haile L. Alford, the first African-American female judge in 
Delaware;

    (7) Arlene Coppadge, the first African-American female judge appointed 
to the Delaware Family Court;

    (8) Gregory M. Sleet, the first African American to be appointed as the 
United States Attorney for the District of Delaware and the first African-
American judge to serve on the United States District Court for the 
District of Delaware;

    (9) Alex J. Smalls, the first African-American chief judge of the 
Delaware Court of Common Pleas; and

    (10) Tamika Montgomery-Reeves, the first African-American Vice 
Chancellor of the Delaware Court of Chancery and the first African-American 
justice to serve on the Supreme Court of Delaware; and

Whereas Louis L. Redding is remembered as an individual who figured prominently 
        in the struggle for desegregation and as a lawyer who never lost a 
        desegregation case: Now, therefore, be it
    Resolved by the Senate (the House of Representatives concurring), 
That Congress honors the life and work of Louis Lorenzo Redding, a 
civil servant whose lifelong dedication to justice and equality stand 
as an outstanding example of leadership for all people.
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