[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 30 (Tuesday, March 11, 1997)]
[House]
[Pages H863-H868]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




         TRIBUTE TO ARNOLD ARONSON, A GREAT CIVIL RIGHTS LEADER

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 7, 1997, the gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. Clyburn] is 
recognized for 60 minutes.


                             General Leave

  Mr. CLYBURN. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members 
may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their 
remarks and to include therein extraneous material on the subject of my 
special order this evening.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from South Carolina?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. CLYBURN. Mr. Speaker, I rise to pay tribute this evening to one 
of our Nation's greatest civil rights leaders: Arnold Aronson. Arnold 
Aronson has been active in civil rights for nearly 60 years.
  In 1941, he, along with A. Philip Randolph, mobilized a campaign that 
led to President Roosevelt's Executive order which banned 
discrimination on the basis of race, creed or national origin in war-
related industries. This Executive order established the first Fair 
Employment Practice Committee.
  In 1941, Mr. Aronson headed the Bureau of Jewish Employment Problems, 
a one-person agency located in Chicago. Discrimination against Jews at 
that time was overt and widespread. Help wanted ads specifying gentile 
only were commonplace, and employment agencies accepted and filled 
orders in accordance with such specifications.
  Rather than attempting to deal with the problem as it affected Jews 
alone, he decided to attack employment discrimination per se, no matter 
the victim. Accordingly, he organized the Chicago Council Against 
Religious and Racial Discrimination, a coalition of religious, labor, 
ethnic, civil rights and social welfare organizations. As council 
secretary, Arnold Aronson directed the campaign that led to the first 
municipal Fair Employment Practices Commission in the Nation.
  In 1943, he organized a statewide coalition, the Illinois Fair 
Employment Council, and initiated the campaign for a State FEP 
legislation.
  In 1945, he became program director of the National Jewish Community 
Relations Advisory Council, a coalition of national and local Jewish 
agencies. He developed policies and programs for Jewish agency 
involvement on issues of civil rights, civil liberties, immigration 
reform, church and State separation, Soviet Jewish immigration and 
support for Israel.
  In 1946, Arnold Aronson became secretary of the National Council for 
a Permanent FEPC, a coalition which was headed by A. Philip Randolph, 
and together they directed campaigns for Federal civil rights 
legislation in the 79th and 80th Congresses.
  In 1949, he became the secretary of the National Emergency Civil 
Rights Mobilization, which was chaired by Roy Wilkins, and together 
they organized a lobby in support of President Truman's proposed civil 
rights program.
  Around this same time, Mr. Speaker, Arnold Aronson and a few men, a 
small group, set out to professionalize people who were working in 
civil rights and allied fields by establishing the National Association 
of Intergroup Relations Officials. The name of that group has since 
been changed, and today it is called the National Association of Human 
Rights Workers.
  Arnold Aronson held many offices in that organization, including a 
term as president. In fact, it is my great honor to have been one of 
his successor presidents in this organization, and I was pleased to 
meet with them in Shreveport, LA, 3 weeks ago, and look forward to 
their annual meeting in October of this year.

                              {time}  2000

  During Arnold Aronson's term as president, he established the Journal 
of Intergroup Relations, which continues to the present time and is an 
organization to which I very often contribute.
  Mr. Speaker, I think that Arnold Aronson's lasting legacy, although 
he has been involved in every major civil rights effort in this 
century, is his enduring legacy with the Leadership Conference on Civil 
Rights which he cofounded with NAACP President Roy Wilkins. In 1950, he 
and Mr. Wilkins convened over 4,000 delegates from all over the country 
to urge the Congress to enact employment, antidiscrimination, and 
antilynching laws.
  Along with Martin Luther King, Jr., Arnold Aronson was one of the 10 
organizers of the 1963 March on Washington. During the Leadership 
Conference's first 13 years, Arnold Aronson served as its secretary and 
directed the day-to-day operations of the organization. Along with 
NAACP Washington bureau director Clarence Mitchell, Aronson and the 
Leadership Conference coordinated the successful lobbying efforts which 
resulted in the passage of the 1957 and 1964 Civil Rights Acts, the 
1965 Voting Rights Act, and the 1968 Fair Housing Act.
  Arnold Aronson's lasting legacy, I believe, is summed up in a quote 
of his, and I would like to quote it. Arnold Aronson once wrote: The 
struggle of civil rights cannot be won by any one group acting by or 
for itself alone, but only through a coalition of groups that share a 
common commitment to equal justice and equal opportunity for every 
American.
  Mr. Speaker, Arnold Aronson's life is a model for us all. I consider 
it a privilege to have known him and to have worked with him. I am 
honored to join with my colleagues this evening in saluting this giant 
on today, his 86th birthday. Happy birthday, Arnold Aronson, and we 
thank you.
  Mr. Speaker, joining with me in this special order this evening are 
Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, Congresswoman Sheila Jackson-Lee, 
and Congressman John Lewis.
  It is my pleasure at this time, Mr. Speaker, to yield to Congressman 
John Lewis.
  Mr. LEWIS of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague and 
friend from the great State of South Carolina for yielding. I want to 
thank the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia [Ms. Norton] for 
organizing this special order in honor of our friend Arnold Aronson. It 
is fitting and appropriate that we gather here on the floor of the 
House of Representatives to pay tribute to this great man on this, the 
occasion of his 86th birthday. I want to personally wish Mr. Aronson a 
happy, a very happy birthday.
  As Americans, we owe a debt of gratitude to Arnold Aronson. We live 
in a better country, a better society, and a better world because of 
the work of this civil rights pioneer. I would not be here, I would not 
be a Member of Congress but for the hard work, dedication, and 
commitment by Arnold Aronson and others like him.
  These were people who took up the cause of equal rights and civil 
rights long before they became politically popular, before they became 
the fashion of the day. Arnold Aronson was one of the original founders 
of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, and

[[Page H864]]

for this he should be commended and remembered. But Mr. Aronson was 
more than that, I can tell you. He was the glue that held the civil 
rights movement together.
  I remember many meetings during the 1960's, many meetings here in 
Washington during some heated discussion, sometimes heated debates. It 
was always Arnold Aronson that held us together. In order to have 
people and individuals, the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia 
[Ms. Norton] will remember, the gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. 
Clyburn] and others, to have an A. Philip Randolph, a Martin Luther 
King, Jr., a Roy Wilkins, a James Farmer, a Bayard Rustin, and the 
young people from the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and 
others in the same room, it was a great deal to try to control.
  This man, this good man, was a soldier of conscience, a warrior in a 
nonviolent crusade to bring equality to America. While the civil rights 
climate ebbed and flowed in the course of his 60-year career, Arnold 
Aronson stood like a mighty oak planted by the bank of the river. He 
never swayed, he never wavered, he never faltered. He knew what was 
right and he worked every day to make that vision a reality.
  Under his day-to-day leadership as secretary of the Leadership 
Conference on Civil Rights, Arnold Aronson lobbied and fought 
successfully for the passage of the 1957 and the 1964 Civil Rights Act, 
the 1965 Voting Rights Act, and the 1968 Fair Housing Act. To this day 
he remains an active member of the Leadership Conference. Due in part 
to his leadership and his ability, his capacity to build a coalition, 
the Leadership Conference today includes 180 viable organizations and 
groups and fights against all forms of racial, religious, national 
origin, gender, and sexual orientation bigotry and discrimination.
  Tonight, Mr. Speaker, I want to note in particular the vital and 
historic role that Mr. Aronson played in uniting the black and Jewish 
communities in the struggle for civil rights. It is a bond and a 
friendship that continues to this very day. For example, in my city of 
Atlanta and many other cities, there is a black-Jewish coalition 
working together due in large part to the road paved by our friend 
Arnold Aronson.
  As I said when I started, it is more than fitting and appropriate 
that we gather here today. Few Americans have done more to bring us 
together, more to unite us as a nation and as a people than has Arnold 
Aronson. My late mentor, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., talked during the 
1960's of building a beloved community, a nation at peace with itself, 
where people were judged not by the color of their skin but by the 
content of their character. Arnold Aronson has done as much as any man 
in this Nation to help build that beloved community. For that he will 
always be, in my heart and in the hearts of millions of others, 
beloved.

  Thank you, Mr. Aronson. Thank you for your hard work.
  Mr. CLYBURN. I thank the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Lewis] for his 
statement.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Texas [Ms. Jackson-Lee].
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. I thank my esteemed colleague from South 
Carolina both for his leadership and his long service in the area of 
human and civil rights.
  Let me thank the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia [Ms. 
Norton] for her wisdom in organizing this tribute. Mr. Aronson, as one 
of the newer members of this Congress, let me thank you for giving me 
the opportunity now to serve a very diverse constituency in the U.S. 
Congress from the 18th Congressional District in Texas. I rise today to 
commend and support this special order recognizing Mr. Arnold Aronson, 
one of the Nation's greatest champions of the civil rights movement.
  This special order fittingly comes on Mr. Aronson's 86th birthday and 
I tip my hat to you. Arnold Aronson has long been seen as a key figure 
in the history of this country's struggle for civil rights. The well-
documented story of Mr. Aronson's legacy to the chapters of this 
Nation's civil rights movement have been chronicled by countless 
historians. Since the New Deal era, Arnold Aronson has spoken on behalf 
of this Nation's disenfranchised by advocating unity and not division.
  I might say to you in a city that one might study and give rise to 
whether there would be opportunities for Jewish-black coalitions, let 
me say that I have had the privilege in the city of Houston to serve a 
number of years in a very thriving and ongoing dialog between the 
African-American and Jewish community.
  Out of that very bond grew a young man by the name of Mickey Leland 
who served in the U.S. Congress and was one of my predecessors in this 
position. Mickey Leland was infused with the energy of bringing 
communities together and particularly worked to join the black and 
Jewish community.
  In tribute to you, Mr. Aronson, let me say that we still have in 
Houston today a Mickey Leland kibbutz program that sends young men and 
women to Israel from the inner city African-American and Hispanic and 
Asian communities in order to bring about a lasting coalition.
  Let me say that your words spoken so early on the struggle for the 
civil rights movement cannot be won by one group alone has carried many 
of us forward, recognizing that we are all in this same leaky boat 
together and we must rise together or certainly sink together.
  Mr. Aronson was noted as one of the most noted founders of the 
Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, known in the 1950's as the 
Leadership Conference. Let me applaud not only the coalition but the 
friendship of Roy Wilkins and Arnold Aronson wherein this coalition was 
born. It is so very important that at the time that Mr. Aronson made 
the commitment to continue work with the Leadership Conference, he was 
not just sitting by with idle time. He was working full time as program 
director of the National Community Relations Advisory Council, a 
coalition of major Jewish organizations.
  Mr. Aronson began his struggle against discrimination in 1941 as head 
of the Bureau on Jewish Employment at a time when open discrimination 
against Jews was widespread. Help wanted ads specifying gentile only 
were commonplace and employment agencies accepted and filled orders in 
accordance with such specifications. Instead of regarding 
discrimination only as a Jewish program as one might have expected, he 
had a broader view of the true magnitude of the problem, and following 
his conscience, he formed the Chicago Council Against Religious and 
Racial Discrimination, a coalition of religious, labor, ethnic, civil 
rights and social welfare organizations. He coined the phrase 
coalition. He did not speak it, he lived it, and in tribute to him, it 
is continuing.
  Mr. Aronson, countless generations will come to know and can 
appreciate the benefits that your life's work has brought to the unity 
of this Nation. Thank you for your dedication and commitment during 
those early steps in the civil rights movement that began the road to 
making the Constitution of this country extend its rights and 
protections to all of its citizens.
  Finally, in closing, let me add that as we continue to try to forge 
coalitions, a name that comes to mind certainly is Dr. Martin Luther 
King. As the previous speaker noted his words, let me say that in those 
days of the Montgomery bus march and boycott, those were days that were 
both light and dark. One of the statements that Dr. King noted is that 
the history would recall that there were great people who decided to do 
the right thing and that what would be written is that they decided, 
first of all, never to turn back.

                              {time}  2015

  We thank you, Mr. Arnold Aronson, on this your 86th birthday for 
having the greatness of mind and conscious to be able to say we will 
never turn the clock back, and it is this day that we write of you and 
give tribute to you as a great American. The history books will recall 
your greatness as well.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today to commend and support this special order 
recognizing Mr. Arnold Aronson, one of this Nation's greatest champions 
of the civil rights movement.
  This special order fittingly comes on Mr. Aronson's 86th birthday. 
Arnold Aronson has long been seen as a key figure in the history of 
this country's struggle for civil rights.
  The well documented story of Mr. Aronson's legacy to the chapters of 
this Nation's civil rights movement have been chronicled by countless 
historians. Since the New Deal era Arnold Aronson has spoken on behalf 
of this Nation's disenfranchised by advocating unity and not division.

[[Page H865]]

  He said,

       The struggle for civil rights cannot be won by one group 
     acting by or for itself alone, but only through a coalition 
     of groups that share a common commitment to equal justice and 
     equal opportunity for every American.

  Mr. Aronson brokered his words into a coalition of Mr. Roy Wilkins 
and Mr. Aronson wherein the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights was 
born.
  Mr. Aronson was one of the most noted founders of the Leadership 
Conference on Civil Rights known in the 1950's as the Leadership 
Conference.
  Summoned by Roy Wilkins, chairman of the event and Arnold Aronson, 
secretary, 4,269 delegates from 23 States, which included 291 brave 
souls from the South, representing 58 national organizations, converged 
on the Capital to take part in what its conveners called the National 
Emergency Civil Rights Mobilization.
  The actions of Mr. Arnold Aronson and Mr. Roy Wilkins was in direct 
response to a report issued by President Truman's Citizens Committee on 
Civil Rights, in 1947, titled ``To Secure These Rights,'' it was felt 
that the findings of the report could leave no Member of Congress in 
doubt regarding the scope and substance of racial injustice. The Truman 
committee found that the sensational news stories of lynching, Klan 
attacks, and race riots, the Truman committee found were only the most 
shocking manifestations of a strain of prejudice that was everywhere in 
American society.
  This strain of prejudice permeated not only the broad areas of 
employment, housing, education, health care, and voting; but in many 
parts of the country, it infiltrated the most ordinary aspects of life, 
so that to be black in America was to experience daily humiliation.
  Black youngsters were barred from amusement and national marble 
contests. Black shoppers were often unable to try on suits or dresses 
in department stores or eat at the lunch counters like other customers. 
Black travelers had to suffer the indignity of segregated seating 
sections, waiting rooms, rest rooms, and drinking fountains and had to 
often spend long, exhausting hours on the road before finding a place 
to stay or even a place to relieve themselves. Such conditions 
prevailed not only in the South, but even in our Nation's Capital.
  The Congress had not enacted any civil rights law since 1875, and it 
appeared that it would take much more than the meeting of those 
delegates to change that fact.
  But Mr. Aronson was not deterred and on December 17, 1951, as 
secretary of both the council and the mobilization, called 
representatives of the cooperating organizations together to plan 
another Washington meeting: a Leadership Conference on Civil Rights to 
be held in February of the following year to campaign mainly for a 
revision in the Senate rules that would allow a simple majority of that 
body to limit and close debate.
  It was under the Leadership Conference name that the coalition 
continued from then on.
  For the next 13 years the Leadership Conference was housed in a desk 
drawer and filing cabinet in Mr. Aronson's Manhattan office. The 
conference like many just causes had no money. Through the dedication 
and commitment of Mr. Wilkins and Mr. Aronson the organization survived 
these lean years.

  At the time Mr. Aronson made the commitment to continue work with the 
Leadership Conference he was working full time as program director of 
the National Community Relations Advisory Council, a coalition of major 
Jewish organizations.
  Mr. Aronson began his struggle against discrimination in 1941 as head 
of the Bureau of Jewish employment at a time when open discrimination 
against Jews was widespread.
  Help wanted ads specifying ``Gentile only'' were commonplace and 
employment agencies accepted and filled orders in accordance with such 
specifications.
  Instead of regarding discrimination as only a Jewish program he had a 
broader view of the true magnitude of the problem. Following his 
conscience he formed the Chicago Council Against Religious and Racial 
Discrimination, a coalition of religious, labor, ethnic, civil rights, 
and social welfare organizations.
  As the council secretary, Aronson directed the campaign that led to 
the first Municipal Fair Employment Practices Commission in the Nation.
  In 1943, he organized a Statewide coalition, the Illinois Fair 
Employment Council and initiated the campaign for State fair employment 
practices legislation.
  The first fair employment practices legislation was passed in the 
State of New York in 1945. In the ensuing decade, at least a dozen 
States enacted fair employment practices laws with Aronson serving as a 
consultant in several of the campaigns.
  From 1945 to 1976 he served as program director for the National 
Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council, which is a coalition of 
national and local Jewish agencies. Mr. Aronson developed policies and 
programs for Jewish agency involvement on issues of civil rights, civil 
liberties, immigration reform, church-state separation, Soviet Jewish 
immigration, and support for Israel.
  He was clearly a man ahead of his time.
  In 1954, he organized the Consultative Conference on Desegregation, 
and Interreligious Coalition with the heads of the National Council of 
Churches, the Synagogue Council of America, and a representative of the 
national Catholic Welfare Conference as cochairman and himself as 
secretary. The purpose of the Consultative Conference on Desegregation 
was to provide an opportunity for clergymen who were under fire for 
speaking out in support of the Court's decision in Brown might, under 
the cloak of anonymity, might be able to get together with colleagues 
and civil rights leaders who were similarly situated for an exchange of 
views, experience, and for mutual reinforcement. In the few years it 
was in existence, the organization was able to save the pulpits of 
several men who had been threatened with dismissal and, in other 
instances to find places for clergymen who had in fact been fired for 
voicing support of desegregation.
  Mr. Aronson, countless generations to come can know and appreciate 
the benefits that your life's work has brought to the unity of this 
Nation. Thank you for your dedication and commitment during those early 
steps in the civil rights movement that began the road to making the 
Constitution of this country extend its rights and protections to all 
of its citizens.
  Mr. CLYBURN. I thank the gentlewoman from Texas for her statement and 
thank her for her service to her constituents and to our Nation.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from New York [Mrs. Lowey].
  Mrs. LOWEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor a giant in the civil 
rights movement. Arnie Aronson is one of the true champions of civil 
rights in this country. As one of the founders of the Leadership 
Conference on Civil Rights, Arnie has been a lifelong crusader for 
civil rights. Over the years Arnie has avoided publicity, but his lack 
of publicity does not diminish how indebted we are all to him.
  Arnie turns 86 today, and I can think of no better place to honor him 
than on this House floor, where some of his toughest battles were 
fought and won. Arnie's championship of human rights in this country 
has shaped the Nation's policies since the Roosevelt administration. 
From Roosevelt's Executive order barring discrimination in war-related 
industries, to the 1964 Civil Rights Act, to the 1965 Voting Rights Act 
and the 1968 Fair Housing Act, Arnie has helped coordinate the efforts 
to pass every landmark civil rights legislation this body has 
considered.
  Arnie also devoted his life to uniting the Jewish and African-
American communities in the struggle against discrimination. The strong 
ties that exist between these two communities today are a testament to 
Arnie's hard work.
  I think Vernon Jordan said it best when describing the impact Arnie's 
work has had. He said, ``You have the gratitude of countless millions 
who may never have heard of your name but whose lives are better, whose 
prospects are brighter and whose dreams are coming true, thanks to 
you.''
  Mr. Speaker, I am proud to stand today in honor of Arnie Aronson. His 
commitment to racial justice has touched all of our lives and the lives 
of many others who will never know his name but benefit from his 
legacy.
  Happy birthday, Arnie.
  Mr. CLYBURN. I thank the gentlewoman for her statement.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like now to yield to the gentlewoman from the 
District of Columbia [Ms. Norton] who organized this special order for 
this evening and thank her for having done so.
  Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I first want to say how indebted I am to the 
gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. Clyburn]. After I organized this 
special order it became necessary for me to leave the House, and on 
very short notice he was willing to conduct this special order. He is a 
most appropriate gentleman to conduct it, and I very much thank him for 
the grace and skill with which he has done just that.
  Mr. Speaker, I am not sure that the best way to celebrate your 86th 
birthday is listening to a bunch of Members of Congress, but leave it 
to Arnold Aronson, always at work, to spend his 86th birthday just that 
way.
  Now, you know there is a cliche about unsung heroes. But in a very 
real

[[Page H866]]

sense Arnold Aronson gives that phrase new meaning largely because he 
never sought the credit and the praise that is rightfully his in a 
movement where people are not exactly shy in stepping forward to claim 
credit. It is not every good man who is honored on his 86th birthday. 
It is certainly not every good man that brings Members of the House for 
a special order of indebtedness to his work.
  But Arnold Aronson deserves that, and he deserves more, and the fact 
is that he will probably not get a lot more. He will probably not get a 
lot more because in a real sense he has lived a life in which he has 
not sought a lot more. It is up to those of us who know his work and 
appreciate his work to spread the word of his work, and not only, I 
might say, to do tribute to his work because in a very real sense the 
work of Arnold Aronson deserves recognition today because it deserves 
repeating today and because there are too few willing to stand in the 
exact place where he stood, hoisting the flag of the principles that 
make him a great American.
  I come before you this evening with particular humility as a former 
chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, as a child of the 
civil rights movement. I know my own personal indebtedness to Arnold 
Aronson. I know quite well that the agency that it was my great honor 
and privilege to chair, the law I came to administer did not simply pop 
up on the lawbooks one day as this House decided to do the right thing.
  What is too little appreciated today is the kind of work and the kind 
of atmosphere in which that work had to be done. What is too little 
appreciated today is what it was like 56 years ago, when Arnold Aronson 
was there with A. Philip Randolph and where our country was at war, 
proudly marching off to war, with an army segregated to the core and 
thinking not one thing about it, marching off in peace and freedom to 
fight a war against the ultimate bigotry in a segregated army, and 
there were very few who understood that irony or even understood that 
it was wrong to step forward then. If you were white or if you were 
black was to separate yourself from the great masses. Blacks were 
deprived of every conceivable right. Whites, even those who knew the 
difference between racial right and racial wrong, seldom had the 
courage to act on what they knew.
  Arnold Aronson has never lacked that courage. We did not get here by 
ourselves. We got here marching behind others, and Arnold Aronson 
stands among those at the front of that line.
  The agency I came to chair, the Equal Employment Opportunity 
Commission, had its origins in the Fair Employment Practices Committee, 
which Arnold Aronson, working with such stalwarts as A. Philip 
Randolph, helped to achieve. Even the beloved Franklin D. Roosevelt did 
not step forward because it occurred to him that maybe black people 
working in the war industry ought to have equal opportunity in jobs. 
Somebody had to suggest it to him. And in fact there were a small band 
of great men who did so, and history will remember them:
  Joseph Rowell, Bayard Rustin, Clarence Mitchell, Arnold Aronson.
  There are names of the 1990's, but we had best remember the names of 
the 1940's if we want to know truly how we got here.
  Arnold Aronson wrote some of the most compelling reports of the 
period, the reports, the documents that made people especially those in 
high places, like President Truman, understand that it was time to move 
forward. One of the most compelling of those was to secure these rights 
drafted indeed by Arnold Aronson.
  Today, when we are trying to get more funds for the EEOC, it perhaps 
seems impossible to believe that the idea of a permanent FEPC, or Fair 
Employment Practice Committee, was a radical idea. Money for it? The 
point was should there be any such committee at all.
  As late as 1950 Arnold Aronson was at the forefront of those 
struggling for a permanent FEPC. Even the wartime experience, so 
successful, had not led to a permanent agency, and we were not to get 
one until 1964, when Arnold Aronson, unbroken in his work in the 
movement, helped lead the march on Washington that got finally a 
permanent FEPC, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

  The fact is that as late as the 1950's Arnold Aronson was working 
with Roy Wilkins to get an antilynching bill; that is what they called 
it when I was a child and perhaps even when my colleagues were 
children. They called it antilynching bills. It operated at that level 
of terror. We did not call it civil rights acts in order to keep people 
from engaging in violence, and it was at the raw level that Arnold 
Aronson and his colleagues were trying to convince people that you 
should not lynch people. That was not self-evident. That was not 
evident to most Americans. Somebody had to stand up and keep saying it 
and not relent and find ways to make it come true in a country born in 
racism, determined in its racism.
  And what was the cry for an anti-lynching statute was to develop into 
the success of the 1960's, and when the 20th century closes its eyes 
and bids farewell and they name the half dozen pieces of legislation 
that made this century and made this country, the laws which Arnold 
Aronson helped achieve, particularly in the 1960's, will be numbered in 
that group.
  In 1961, Mr. Aronson wrote the pioneering work Federal Support of 
Discrimination. That is what it was all about, Federal funds, the great 
might and weight of the Federal Government in support of 
discrimination. Somebody had to make this country face that fact, that 
the greatest support for discrimination came from the greatest country 
on the face of the Earth.

                              {time}  2030

  Somebody had to do it without hanging back and without dropping the 
ball and had to do it from one decade to the next, because even today 
the work is not done, and the work has been left to those who refuse to 
lay down their swords and retire, but recognize that they had to go 
forward into yet another decade, and that was Arnold Aronson.
  When I was in law school and I would come down in the summers to 
Mississippi, to the March on Washington, to New York where it was being 
organized, to wherever there was work to be done, the fine hand of 
Arnold Aronson was always there.
  He belongs to that extraordinary coterie of men to whom this country 
owes everything. We owe our dignity as a country; we owe the 
elimination of the greatest scar on the American polity; we owe it to 
them. We could never be a great country until that scar was wiped away 
and the great civil rights laws finally achieved, in no small part out 
of their personal labors, and especially the labor of Arnold Aronson 
wiped away that scar and helped us to emerge finally as a great Nation.
  Let me finally say something about an issue that needs to be 
confronted as we are celebrating the life of Arnold Aronson. We live 
now in a country where people go off into their respective ethnic and 
racial corners. In a real sense there was more discourse across racial 
lines when I was a girl in the civil rights movement. We have lost some 
of the spirit that guided the times and events of Arnold Aronson, and I 
would ask us tonight not simply to honor him on his 86th birthday, but 
to try to reclaim and recapture the moral authority of Arnold Aronson. 
He had that authority because he knew no prejudice, first and foremost; 
because he lived the word that we were all created equal.
  So today the great alliance between African-Americans and Jews needs 
to come alive again, needs to come alive again if we are to remember 
from whence we came and who were there with us when nobody else was 
there.
  I have to say it, Mr. Speaker. The one thing I cannot understand is 
black anti-Semitism, because the one group of people who were always 
there with African-Americans were American Jews. I cannot understand 
it, and we need to confront it, and we need to remind people how we got 
there.
  Arnold Aronson, for most of his life, worked for the National Jewish 
Community Relations Council and worked in that capacity for full rights 
for American Jews and American blacks. If indeed we mean to finally 
finish this struggle, we can only finish it if we rededicate ourselves 
to the principles that made it a great struggle. If it is only about 
our rights, it is about nobody's rights. It means nothing if we take on 
the very mantle of prejudice that we are ourselves so long have 
criticized others for wearing.

[[Page H867]]

  So this evening let the life of Arnold Aronson take us back to 
basics, to our first principles that all men and women are created 
equal, that if I am a black I will stand up first against anti-
Semitism. If I am an Hispanic, I will stand up first against racism. 
The rest of you will have to stand after me. Only then and only with 
that resolve, only with that sense of coalition and moral authority 
will we complete the work so valiantly carried on by Arnold Aronson. He 
does us great honor by allowing us to honor him this evening.
  Mr. CLYBURN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman very much for her 
very moving statement on behalf of our honoree this evening.
  Mr. Speaker, as was said earlier, Arnold Aronson in 1943 started the 
move toward FEP agencies, but it was in 1945, I believe was the year, 
that the first State FEP agency was enacted into law, and that was in 
New York. It is my great pleasure now to yield time to the gentleman 
from New York [Mr. Owens].
  Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate the gentleman from 
South Carolina [Mr. Clyburn] for taking out this most appropriate 
special order to honor Arnold Aronson.
  Arnold Aronson represents a breed that gets lost, the people behind 
the scenes who do all the hard work. Often geniuses at an organization 
get lost. The headlines never pick them up, and history is of course 
filled with people of this kind, and the American dream would not be 
realized unless there were so many Americans of this kind out there 
always.
  They were there during the civil rights struggle in great abundance, 
and they are still there to some degree. They have been intimidated by 
some of the loud voices and intimidated by the fact that there is such 
cynical reporting in the media, and have not exercised their full 
power.
  But we are the majority; we are not beggars, the people who care. I 
call it the coalition of a caring majority, and I often talk about it 
as being a natural coalition. I say that almost in desperation, a 
natural coalition, because what we really need is a real coalition, and 
we have had real coalitions, well organized coalitions.
  The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights represents a well organized 
coalition, a coalition that was needed at a particular time, and if it 
had not been there we would have a very different scenario for American 
history. The civil rights struggle and the results from that struggle 
would be very different.
  It is important, and I do not want to be redundant because I think 
his accomplishments have been cited by a number of speakers, but it is 
important that we send a message to our young people, young people of 
all groups, all races, but particularly young people who are African-
American. There is so much cynicism, there are so many loud voices 
competing for their attention in trying to divert them from a course of 
coalition, that we have to take this opportunity to emphasize the fact 
that coalitions are the only way to win in America. Mr. Speaker, we 
only get the majority if we are a coalition in America, if we happen to 
be a member of a minority.
  In fact, the history of the world and the history of prejudice and of 
oppression shows that one of the reasons that people are oppressed is 
that they are in a minority. I mean there is no other reason.
  When we look at all of the various reasons that oppressors give, they 
often say that this group was oppressed because it had an inferior 
education, it had bad hygiene habits, bad sex mores, it had an inferior 
IQ, the IQ was not high enough. We get that kind of argument sometimes. 
But get another argument that they were too brilliant, they knew too 
much, they dominated too many positions in the judiciary, they 
dominated too many positions in the intellectual circles, and you get 
the same kind of oppression because the oppressor looks for a reason 
behind the reason.
  The real reason is that because they are in a minority and they are 
weak, they are fodder for demagogues. I think the senior Benjamin 
Netanyahu, who has written a book about the inquisition, the Spanish 
Inquisition, one of his conclusions is that the Jews were oppressed in 
Egypt, and he searched for all the reasons and found that for no other 
reason than they were the minority and they were weak and easy prey 
to demagogues, and the pattern of oppression against the Jews in other 
places was the same. They were just there, easy fodder for demagogues.

  Any minority in any society is easy fodder for demagogues. Therefore, 
all minorities should always place a high premium on forming 
coalitions, all minorities. Certainly African-Americans in America 
should understand that we cannot survive without coalitions. Coalitions 
are our only means for survival.
  Yes, we have had a lot of progress, and of course we are trumpeting 
and paying tribute to some of the progress that has been made as a 
result of some of the people like Arnold Aronson, but the message to 
the young people should be that this is the way it was then, this is 
the way it has to be now, this is the way it must continue to be. 
Coalitions. You win with coalitions. The caring majority in America is 
larger than any other group. When you put it all together, the caring 
majority is big, the caring majority can make America work.
  Most people in America do not want to live by somebody else's sweat, 
they do not want to live by somebody's else's blood. They do not want 
to be unfair. Most people in America are ready to follow leadership 
that calls out the best in them. But unfortunately, the leadership that 
gets the high visibility, the leadership that gets the media attention, 
the leadership that gets the microphone most of the time are leadership 
members who are calling for the worst in people.
  This is true unfortunately not only in the majority, but also in some 
minorities. In our own minority we have had loud voices that have 
called for separatism, isolationism; loud voices that have gone into 
extremism; loud voices that have sought to tear asunder long-existing 
coalitions. Arnold Aronson behind the scenes was one of those people 
who was always working to knit together that coalition and to make that 
coalition effective.
  Throughout history there have been a whole lot of them. White men, 
white women, have played a major role in the liberation of black people 
in America. When slaves were totally powerless, when slaves had no 
organization to form coalitions with, it was the abolitionists, it was 
the whites who had to carry the ball.
  In the crucial days following the end of the Civil War, it was white 
Thaddeus Stevens from Pennsylvania, it was white Charles Sumner and 
others who had to forge ahead and against evil forces that were seeking 
to undermine the victory won in the Civil War, the end of slavery. They 
had to forge ahead and help push the 13th amendment and the 14th 
amendment and the 15th amendment. Whites had to do that, and whites did 
it, in many cases all alone.
  The abolitionists formed coalitions, and those coalitions began to 
take root after blacks were able to organize. But we are here, and for 
all of those young people who think we have not gone far enough: too 
much lack of opportunity, too much discrimination, economic oppression 
now is the problem, and therefore they want to become cynical about 
attempting to move forward in coalition with others, I say to those 
young people, history unfortunately moves too slow.
  History unfortunately is a captive of strong men who sometimes are 
evil men. History unfortunately does not realize the full potential of 
the human spirit, but history does move forward like an inchworm. Maybe 
it is a wounded inchworm sometimes, but it moves forward.
  We would not be where we are today if it had not been for history 
moving forward. It is made to move forward because there are people 
like Arnold Aronson that we do not hear about. They swarm like 
beautiful butterflies; we do not know they are there, but we only need 
leadership to call them forth. And among our young people, they could 
be and should be part of those swarming butterflies moving together to 
make America great; behind the scenes, unsung, doing the hard work 
necessary to realize the dreams that are here.
  We have a great potential in this country. We are the richest country 
that exists on the face of the earth. Productivity, prosperity, 
everything is booming forward at this point. Why are there so many 
people suffering? Why

[[Page H868]]

are there such evil ideas being put forth? It is because so many people 
have given up; so many people do not recognize that when we put the 
coalition forward, we are the majority, we do not have to be beggars.
  Arnold Aronson understood that. He understood the price we have to 
pay in energy and time and patience to make the coalitions work. I 
salute Arnold Aronson, and I hope the young people will go searching; 
when they do their book reports and they make their various 
presentations during Black History Month, as well as any other time, 
that they single out people who have not been highlighted in the 
encyclopedias enough, people who have not been portrayed on the 
calendars, but the people who have made history what it is in terms of 
the positive movement forward in America, people like Arnold Aronson. I 
congratulate Arnold Aronson on his 86th birthday.

                              {time}  2045

  I congratulate Arnold Aronson on his 86th birthday. I thank the 
gentleman for being here.
  Mr. CLYBURN. I thank the gentleman for his statement. Mr. Speaker, in 
closing this special order this evening, I thought as I listened to the 
remarks being made by my colleagues this evening, I thought about the 
last time I shared a lunch, I believe it was in Kansas City, with 
Arnold Aronson and the things we talked about.
  I thought about many of his successors as president of the National 
Association of Human Rights Workers: Dick Lexum in Michigan, Leon 
Russell, and Albert Nelson in Florida, Mary Snead in South Carolina, 
Marjorie Connor in Michigan, and many, many others.
  I thought about Martin Luther King, Jr.'s letter from the Birmingham 
city jail. A lot of us read that letter. I try to read it at least once 
a year. There is a place in that letter where King spoke or wrote about 
people like Arnold Aronson. He wrote at one place in his letter that we 
are going to be made to repent in this generation, not just for the 
vitriolic words and deeds of bad people, but for the appalling silence 
of good people.
  I am pleased to join with my colleagues tonight thanking Arnold 
Aronson for being among the good people who refused to remain silent. 
Because he spoke up and because he stood up, many of us are here in 
this body this evening, and many of us are in similar bodies all across 
this country. I can think of no better way to help him celebrate his 
86th birthday than to have participated in this special order tonight.
  Finally, Mr. Speaker, I want to wish Arnold Aronson many, many more 
birthdays.
  Mr. BISHOP. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to applaud the work and 
character of Arnold Aronson. His distinguished career in civil rights 
spans nearly 60 years. Mr. Aronson is most noted for being one of the 
founders of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights in 1950 and his 
draft of the report ``To Secure these Rights.'' This report was later 
issued by President Truman's Citizens Committee on Civil Rights in 1947 
and eventually became the basis for the 1957 Civil Rights Act. Mr. 
Aronson was also one of the ten organizers and leaders of the historic 
1963 march on Washington.
  Throughout his career, Aronson has worked with many organizations 
spanning the entire spectrum of the civil rights movement. He was 
program director of the National Jewish Community Relations Council and 
founder and president of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights 
Education Fund. He is also noted for his attempts to rally Jewish and 
black communities in the interest of racial tolerance.
  I salute the dedication and contributions of Arnold Aronson to civil 
rights.

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