[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 46 (Thursday, April 17, 1997)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E700]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




         THE JOSEPHINE BUTLER UNITED STATES HEALTH SERVICE ACT

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. RONALD V. DELLUMS

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, April 17, 1997

  Mr. DELLUMS. Mr. Speaker: I rise to honor the memory of Josephine 
Butler by introducing the Josephine Butler United States Health Act. 
This legislation is named after a heroic African-American fighter who 
lived in this Nation's Capital. The Josephine Butler United States 
Health Service Act seeks a comprehensive, universal national health 
care system based on health care for people, not profits; on community 
control of health care, not corporate control; commits to the 
proposition that a health care system in the richest Nation in the 
world should be available to everyone living in this Nation, and that 
such a health care system must be dedicated to the whole person, their 
family, and their community.
  Josephine Butler was a holistic activist, whose passion and tireless 
energy encompassed not only health care but statehood for the District 
of Columbia, the environment, the trade union movement, women's rights, 
the welfare of children, the arts, peace and justice for all nations, 
and neighborhood parks. Josephine Butler, called by some the Harriet 
Tubman of the District of Columbia, a founder and former chairperson of 
the D.C. Statehood Party, was guided by a fierce commitment to the 
right of self-determination for all peoples. Ms. Butler brought the 
D.C. statehood movement to people across the United States and to the 
United Nations.
  Josephine Butler was an international and a courageous peace 
activist. She was founder of the D.C. chapter of the Paul Robeson 
Society, and a founder of the World Congress of Peace. Her concern for 
peace was worldwide--from the former Soviet Union, to the island of 
Grenada, the Middle East, South Africa, and back to the District of 
Columbia. In 1994 Ms. Butler received the National Partnership 
Leadership Award from President Clinton for the work she had done in 
transforming the once crime-ridden Meridian Hill/Malcolm X Park into a 
place of beauty. Her work as cochair of the Friend of Meridian Hill led 
the President to cite the group as a ``shining example for the nation'' 
of what community activism can accomplish.
  Johsphine Butler, born January 24, 1920, moved to Washington, DC, 
seeking medical treatment for typhoid fever as a young girl from the 
Brandywine area of Prince George's County where her father had been a 
sharecropper. She began working in a laundry and took the lead in 
organizing laundry workers in the D.C. area into a union. She remained 
involved in union activities, committed to the rights of workers for 
the rest of her life.
  In the late 1950's and early 1960's, Jo Butler was incapacitated with 
tuberculosis. Upon recovery, she became a volunteer for the D.C. Lung 
Association, and then the association's community health educator, 
where she worked from 1969 to 1980. Her deep commitment to adequate 
health care for all led her to serve as a founding board member of the 
Committee for a National Health Service formed in the 1970's. She died 
on March 29, 1997, but remains alive in our hearts, supporting our 
efforts to achieve universal health care for this great Nation.

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