[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 76 (Thursday, June 5, 1997)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1144-E1145]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




THE HONORABLE CARRIE P. MEEK HONORS MR. ODELL JOHNS, SOUTH DADE'S GREAT 
                            COMMUNITY LEADER

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. CARRIE P. MEEK

                               of florida

                    in the house of representatives

                         Thursday, June 5, 1997

  Mrs. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, it is indeed a distinct honor to 
pay tribute to one of Miami's unsung heroes, Mr. Odell Johns. His 
untimely demise from the scourge of diabetes last Monday, June 2, 1997 
will truly leave a deep void in our community.
  Mr. Johns, 65, represented the best and the noblest of our community. 
Having dedicated a major portion of his life to the civil rights 
movement since the early sixties, he tirelessly continued his historic 
struggle to ensure the creation of employment services and equal 
educational opportunities for our South Dade residents, regardless of 
ethnic background, creed, or gender.
  ``He was known in his community as the man to turn to when a job 
needed to get done in South Dade,'' said Col. Brodes Hartley, president 
of Community Health Initiative. ``Whether it was public housing, 
economic development for local business or the health care needs of the 
community, he always found time to get involved.''
  A meticulous father and a firm believer in the centrality of God in 
his family and his community, he was driven by his Christian 
stewardship on behalf of others, especially those who could least fend 
for themselves. Because of his missionary zeal of consecration to the 
well-being of others, many of South Dade's impoverished residents can 
now have access to primary health care and mental health services. His 
brand of leadership was genuinely anchored on his sterling integrity 
and resilient initiative. Most of my district's South Dade constituency 
has credited him with virtually every major improvement that is now 
benefiting the community for which he cared so deeply.
  In 1953 Mr. Johns graduated from my Alma Mater, Florida A&M 
University, with a political science degree. He subsequently responded 
to his country's calling by joining the U.S. Army, serving as an 
officer with the rank of lieutenant in the Artillery Corps.
  During the civil rights movement the acumen of his intelligence and 
the longevity of his commitment was felt at a time when our community 
needed someone to put in perspective the pains and agonies of 
disenfranchised African-Americans and other minorities yearning to 
belong and participate in the American dream. Along with Col. Hartley, 
he was one of the leaders in the bus boycott in Tallahassee, FL, that 
subsequently followed the landmark

[[Page E1145]]

boycott involving Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr., in 
Montgomery, AL.
  He demonstrated that same dogged tenacity to the people of South 
Dade. He thoroughly understood the accouterments of power and 
leadership, and he wisely exercised them alongside the mandate of his 
conviction in hastening the emergence of equal opportunity and justice 
for all.
  Our community was immensely touched and comforted by his undaunted 
leadership, kindly compassion, and personal warmth. To his daughters, 
Kim and Linda Joyce, to his sons Ricardo, Odell III, Dyke Earl Martin, 
along with his 11 grandchildren and the rest of his South Dade family, 
he preached and lived by the adage that, with God's help, the quest for 
personal integrity and professional achievement is not beyond the reach 
of those willing to dare the impossible and advocate for the well-being 
of the least fortunate and the disenfranchised.
  This is the great legacy Mr. Odell Johns has bequeathed to our 
community. I am greatly privileged to have earned his friendship and to 
have been given the opportunity to learn and live by his noble credo.

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