[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 110 (Wednesday, July 24, 1996)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1366-E1367]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              RECOGNIZING A CHALLENGE TO OUR YOUNG LEADERS

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. LOUIS STOKES

                                of ohio

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, July 24, 1996

  Mr. STOKES. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to share with my colleagues a 
special message. Mr. Harold B. Williams, the former secretary of the 
Cleveland branch NAACP and a retired U.S. Department of Transportation 
official, recently addressed the Tabernacle A.M.E. Church in Idlewild, 
MI. This speech, which was delivered for the celebration of Black 
History Month, allowed him to send a message to our bright, young 
leaders of tomorrow. Mr. Williams reminded the audience that no one can 
reach the stars alone. He also challenged our youth to blaze their own 
trails and follow their own paths.
  Mr. Williams also reminds us that we are here by the grace of our 
forefathers. He did a fine job of illuminating this point in his 
motivating address. Mr. Speaker, I particularly liked Harold Williams' 
speech because it reminds all young people that it will eventually be 
their responsibility to nurture, teach, and guide their successors, as 
well as their colleagues, toward goals which strengthen us as a Nation 
and a people. It is my hope that my colleagues will read this 
outstanding speech by Harold Williams and share its invaluable message. 
I ask that the following address be entered into the Congressional 
Record.

 A Letter to Young African Americans Presented in Observance of Black 
                      History Month, February 1996

                        (By Harold B. Williams)

       Go! Go! Young Achievers--Excel to Olympian Heights. Bravo, 
     African Americans of 1996. You are our pride. Come back and 
     take someone with you!
       Remember, no person makes it on their own! He or she walks 
     in the footprints of the past. The antecedent of today's 
     progress is found in the powerful energy unleashed 
     generations ago to create today's chemistry for new 
     opportunities.
       Remember, young physicians and scientists, Daniel Hale 
     Williams, pioneer in open heart surgery; Charles Drew, blood 
     plasma research; Ben Carson, neurosurgeon, separator of 
     Siamese twins; Louis Sullivan, Secretary of Health and Human 
     Services, President of Morehouse College of Medicine; Jocelyn 
     Elders, Surgeon General; Lonnie R. Bristow, President of 
     American Medical Association, and others.
       Go! Go! Young people of science. We are proud of you. 
     Choose a cause for African Americans and humanity--health 
     care for the poor, nutrition for children, hypertension, 
     cancer or aids. You can do it. We are counting on you. Come 
     back and take someone with you!
       Young attorneys, at the bar of justice you jet from an 
     orbit set by Charles Houston, NAACP counsel, Dean of Howard 
     University Law School; Thurgood Marshall, NAACP counsel, U.S. 
     Supreme Court Justice; William Coleman, U.S. Secretary of 
     Transportation, corporate lawyer, Chairman of NAACP Legal 
     Defense and Education Fund; Patricia R. Harris, U.S. 
     Secretary of Housing and Urban Affairs, ambassador and 
     corporate lawyer; Johnny Cochran, trial lawyer for defense, 
     and many more.
       Go! Go! Young barristers, you successful legal specialist. 
     Welcome to the prestigious law firms of ``Able, Best, Class, 
     and Dollar,'' Reach for a new orbit, guardians of our civil 
     rights. We are proud of you. Bravo! Come back and take 
     someone with you.
       Twentieth Century African Americans, captains of business--
     from door to door salesmen to auto dealerships to 
     international food chains--how impressive! Remember Madam 
     C.J. Walker, entrepreneur of hair products and hair care; 
     John Johnson, publisher of Ebony and Jet Magazines; Robert 
     Maynard, Editor/Publisher, Oakland Tribune, a major U.S. 
     daily newspaper; Reginald Lewis of Beatrice Foods, first 
     African American C.E.O. of a billion dollar corporation; 
     Andrew Brimmer, economist and a former governor of the 
     Federal Reserve Board; Jessie Hill, Chairman, Atlanta Life 
     Insurance Company; and the new breed of diversified 
     investors/proprietors: J. Bruce Llewellyn, Philadelphia 
     Coca-Cola Bottling Company, chairman ABC T.V., Buffalo 
     N.Y.; Percy Sutton, chairman, Inner City Broadcasting 
     N.Y., past President, Borough of Manhattan; Bill Cosby, 
     Oprah Winfrey, Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, and others.
       Go! Go! Young Tycoons! There is always room at the top for 
     ``BUPPIES,'' Wall Streeters and super achievers. Go alumni 
     from the University of Entrepreneurial Self Help. We are 
     very, very proud of you! Hats off to you alphabets--Ph.D's, 
     CPA's, JD's, MBA's, etc. Bravo! You are proud of yourselves--
     You should be. Where would you be without your smarts? But 
     what would you be without the past to use your smarts? Go! 
     Create opportunity, goodwill and Come back and take someone 
     with you!
       African American artists--Our first frontier of interracial 
     progress, we are proud and happy with your accomplishments. 
     You are our hope for the future. Remember Marian Anderson, 
     Metropolitan opera diva and concert artist; Scott Joplin, 
     composer; Josephine Baker, international singer and 
     entertainer; Paul Robeson, concert artist and actor; W.C. 
     Handy, composer of ``St. Louis Blues''; Lena Horne, actress 
     and singer, Katherine Dunham, dance and choreographer; Sidney 
     Poitier, actor; Spike Lee, producer; Quincy Jones, musician, 
     composer, arranger; James Earl Jones, actor; Barry Gordy, 
     founder and chairman of Motown Records; Whitney Houston, 
     singer; Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee, husband and wife actor and 
     actress and producers. Remember the Great Duke Ellington! And 
     many, many others who left the stage door open and the lights 
     on.
       Go! Go! Young artists (no stereotypes!) Win your Pulitzers 
     for writing and your Image, Emmy and Oscar awards for drama, 
     comedy, classical music, Broadway song and dance. Bravo! 
     Young electronic media performers, writers, sculptors, 
     painters and poets. Leave the stage door open and the lights 
     on--Come back and take someone with you!
       African American statesmen and other persona are gifted and 
     respected individuals upon our horizons--from Privates to 
     Admirals and Generals--from Annapolis, West

[[Page E1367]]

     Point and Tuskegee--from the battlefield of Bunkerhill and 
     ships at Pearl Harbor, African American patriotism and 
     bravery is legendary.
       Listen closely young African Americans to this roll call: 
     Colonel Charles Young; Brigadier General B.O. Davis, Sr.; 
     Lieutenant General B.O. Davis, Jr.; Four Star General Daniel 
     ``Chappie'' James; Admiral Samuel Gravely, U.S. Navy; 
     Colin Powell, Four Star General, Chairman of the U.S. 
     Joint Chiefs of Staff and proposed President candidate.
       Go!Go! Young soldiers and sailors. Earn your stripes, bars, 
     eagles and stars. Reach for the top brass. You can do it!
       African American statesmen and international achievers of 
     rare distinction are our authentic heroes. Remember Ralph J. 
     Bunch, Deputy Secretary General of the United Nations, 
     Awardee of the Nobel Peace Prize; Donald McHenry, Ambassador 
     to the United Nations; Andrew J. Young, Ambassador to the 
     United Nations; Ruth Simmons, President of Smith College; 
     Dorothy Height, President of the National Council of Negro 
     Women; Ronald McNair, physicist, astronaut, perished in space 
     exploration; Mae Jemison, M.D., first Afro-American in space 
     exploration; Alex Haley, author of Roots; Ron Brown, 
     Chairman, Democratic National Committee, Secretary, U.S. 
     Department of Commerce; Marion Wright Edelman, President of 
     the Children's Defense Fund; Joe Louis, Muhammed Ali, boxers; 
     Benjamin Mays, theologian, President of Morehouse College; 
     Samuel Proctor, President, Virginia Union University, 
     theologian, Boston and Duke University Divinity Schools; 
     Franklin Thomas, President, Ford Foundation; Toni Morrison, 
     novelist and awardee of the Nobel Prize for Literature.
       Go!Go! You super high chargers! There is no limit on what 
     you can accomplish. There are new words to conquer. Always 
     questions in search of answers. Give it your very best! Come 
     back and take someone with you!
       The African American political legacy, a chronicle of Elan 
     Vital, fifty years of precedent setters, who have progressed 
     from ward leaders to mayors, to State Houses, to the U.S. 
     Congress. They are the unmatchables of their time. Remember 
     Adam Clayton Powell, Congressman from Harlem; Eddie Brooke, 
     U.S. Senator from Massachusetts; Shirley Chisolm, 
     Congresswoman from Brooklyn; Carl B. Stokes, Mayor of 
     Cleveland, Ambassador; Louis Stokes, Congressman from 
     Cleveland and Chairman of U.S. House Assassination Committee; 
     Barbara Jordan, attorney, Congresswoman from Houston, Texas 
     and professor of government; Carol Mosely-Braun, U.S. Senator 
     from Illinois; Tom Bradley, 20-year Mayor of Los Angeles; 
     Willie Brown, Speaker, State Assembly of California and Mayor 
     of San Francisco; William Gray, III, Congressman from 
     Philadelphia and Chairman, U.S. House Budget Committee, 
     President, United Negro College Fund; Douglas Wilder, 
     Governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia, Kewesi Mfume, 
     Congressman from Baltimore, Chairman of Congressional Black 
     Caucus, President of the NAACP, and many illustrious others.
       Young African American politicians, you have an amazing 
     legacy. Big Boots? `Yes, try them on--in success. One size 
     fits all; no problem. You can do it! New political 
     gerrymandered district lines, Plessy/Ferguson mentality, 
     Christian ``Wrong'' Coalition and Affirmative Action 
     reversals are mandates to go and scale the mountains of 
     hypocrisy. Climb! Progress is like a pyramid--each block at 
     the base makes possible many more on the way up. Hang in 
     thre, intrepid ones! Climb down and take someone back with 
     you!
       African American Revolutionaries for cange are keepers of 
     the Covenant of Freedom, torch lighters and standard bearers 
     for the fearless marching feet of souls in the army of 
     Justice. The rolls are too numerous to call, but their record 
     is enshrined in memory--ink and blood. Forget them not!
       Remember Richard Allen, founder of the AME Church; Nat 
     Turner, insurrectionist; Harriet Tubman, Engineer underground 
     Railroad; Frederick Douglas, abolitionist writer and orator, 
     Daniel Payne, Founder of Wilberforce University, first 
     African American institution of higher education, Bishop, AME 
     Church W.E.B. Dubois, founder NAACP, expatriate; Reverdy C. 
     Ranson, Niagara Movement, leader hiring of first Black 
     policeman in New York City, Bishop AME Church; Mary M. 
     Bethune, educator, founder, Bethune Cookman College; Marcus 
     Garvey, self help and back to Africa movement; A. Phillip 
     Randolph, founder of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, 
     father of Black protest marches on Washington and Chair of 
     NAACP National Labor and Industry Committee; Roy Wilkins, 
     Executive Secretary of NAACP; Joseph Gomez, pastor, lecturer, 
     philosopher, bishop, AME Church; Jackie Robinson, barrier 
     breaker, major league baseball, do-chairman, NAACP life 
     membership committee; Rosa Parks, member, AME Church, NAACP 
     youth council adviser and mother of the civil rights 
     movement; Robert Williams, President, Union County, North 
     Carolina NAACP, founder and president of People's Association 
     for Human Rights; Jesse Jackson, founder of PUSH, 
     Presidential candidate; Myrlie Evers-Williams, chairperson, 
     NAACP; Harry Moore, slain NAACP official in Florida; Edgar 
     Evers, slain NAACP Field Secretary in Mississippi; Malcolm X, 
     slain Muslim leader; Martin Luther King, Jr., slain leader of 
     the civil rights movement, Preident of SCLC, awardee of the 
     Nobel Peace Prize and many, many more.
       Go! Go! You, young African Americans--Excel! Lead on, you 
     new keepers of the Covenant. Be fearless, honest to your 
     African American heritage--speak up for justice, protect the 
     weak, banish poverty of the spirit, pursue protest with 
     diligence and strengthen your religious faith. You can do it! 
     Go, super charger achievers! We are counting on you! Come 
     back and take someone with you!
       Young African Americans--The past is an encyclopedia of 
     redeemable legacies, not just a record of subjugation, but a 
     call to fulfill an ancient pledge given to each generation to 
     make its payment to justice and destiny.
       Keep the faith, young African Americans! Charge onward and 
     upward and take someone with you.

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