[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 7 (Thursday, February 5, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H362-H364]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          FAREWELL SPEECH OF THE HONORABLE RONALD V. DELLUMS.

  Mr. DELLUMS. Mr. Speaker, it is with an incredibly heavy heart that I 
take the well of the House of Representatives today because this will 
be the last time that I will do this.
  I have served in these chambers for 27 years, and it has been an 
extraordinary honor and high privilege to serve with all of my 
colleagues here.

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  I came to Congress in January of 1971, against the backdrop of a very 
tumultuous era in the history of this country. The civil rights 
movement, the struggle for the liberation of many oppressed and 
downtrodden people in this country, the struggle for the liberation of 
women, peace in Vietnam, the notion that peace was a superior idea to 
war, the concern for the fragile nature of our ecological system. I 
came at a very unique era, at a very interesting and tumultuous period 
in this country.
  I had to try to make sense out of all the music and anger and pain 
that I heard in Oakland and Berkeley and in the Bay area and in the 
country at that time. I was not to know that Berkeley and Oakland, in 
the mind's eye of many people, was so extraordinary and that when 
people wanted to lash out at what they thought Berkeley represented at 
that period in American history, they could not lash out at an abstract 
idea or at a city, but they could lash out at that person that was the 
representative of that community.
  But I am just a guy. And if you hit me, I hurt; and if you cut me, I 
bleed. And there were many times when you hit me hard and you cut me 
deep. And there were times when I went to my office at night and 
sometimes in the dark, with tears in my eyes, I would pray to just have 
the strength to march back to the floor of the United States Congress 
with my pride and my dignity and to continue to try to fight back.
  Over the years, I tried to extend to every one of my colleagues, on 
both sides of the aisle, the greatest respect that I could give you, 
and that is to give you my undivided attention, to listen to you.
  Well, a couple nights ago my colleagues had a special order. And it 
was about me, so I listened with great care. The first thing I want to 
tell you is that one thing I thought is, no matter how old you are, you 
are always your mother's boy. And I sat here thinking, I wonder if my 
mom is watching.
  The first person that called me when I got home was my mom. She was 
watching. And she asked me to thank all of you for your kind and 
generous remarks. And I thank you because you made my mother feel great 
pride and great joy, and thank you for that.
  You used many adjectives. You said, ``He is the fairest guy I ever 
worked with.'' Well, I was fair because I think that this process 
cannot function without fairness, that the cornerstone of this 
institution, what makes a representative democracy real, what makes 
this at the end of the day the people's branch of Government, is that 
it has to be rooted in the essence of fairness.
  And when I first walked in the door, I was not often treated fairly. 
But I recognized that, as Martin Luther King, Jr., taught me, was that 
I could not be the flip side of the same coin, that I had to be willing 
to try to take the moral high ground, to not respond in the way that 
people responded to me. So I leaned over backwards to be fair. Because 
if this place is to be about anything, it has to be about fairness.
  Some of you, in your accolades, used the term ``integrity.'' The 
reason why over the years I insisted that the process have integrity is 
because, without it, I recognized that the ideas that I came to 
espouse, the constituency that I represented, their hopes and their 
dreams and aspirations would never have a chance unless the process had 
integrity.
  So the reason why I was willing to stand in defense of the most 
junior Democrat, the most junior Republican, or to make sure that the 
most conservative Member had the right to speak out was because to deny 
that person the right to speak was to diminish myself and to deny me 
the right to speak. And for me not to challenge any of you on the basis 
of your ideology and your philosophy in terms of your ability to have 
input meant that I was acquiescing to anyone denying me, based upon my 
political views, an opportunity to speak.
  This institution cannot function without fairness and without 
justice. And, so, I tried to do that. There have been times in these 
chambers when pettiness, challenges of personality, and partisanship 
have been the order of the day.
  Some of my colleagues said rarely have they ever heard Dellums take 
the well as a partisan. You know why? Because I came to realize early 
on that campaigning had to take place outside these chambers, that once 
we walked onto the floor of Congress, the dynamic changed, the paradigm 
changed. At that point, it was not about campaigning and politicking; 
it was about the incredible responsibility of governance.
  And irrespective of your political views, we have to find some way to 
come here intellectually, honest enough to say, how do we now, based 
upon the judgments of the people, with far-ranging perspectives, 
interests and views, manage to govern this country.
  Too often, we have fallen apart at that level.
  Some of you said to me, ``Ron is about ideas and not about 
personalities.'' At the end the day, my friends, it is never about 
personalities. We spend a lot of time attacking each other at the level 
of personalities.
  For any of you where, in the fit of battle, you ever even interpreted 
that I came personally, I take this moment to profusely apologize to 
you. It was never about personal battles. It has always been about 
ideas. Individuals come and go, but ideas must ultimately transcend, 
and ideas must ultimately prevail.
  It has been an incredible honor to serve in the House of 
Representatives. Incredible. Late night talk show hosts' jokes 
notwithstanding, it has been a privilege to serve here, an honor to 
serve here. To get up every day and put on your uniform and put on your 
tie and march to the floor of Congress knowing that, in your hands, in 
that card, in your very being, you have life and death in your hands, 
it is an incredible thing.
  Try not to take Ron Dellums too seriously. I am just a guy. But I 
always took my job with deadly seriousness.
  There were times when a few of us almost went nose to nose. And 
people said, ``Ron, you are a man of peace. How could you be angry?'' I 
said, ``I am a man of peace; but I didn't necessarily say I was always 
a peaceful man. You can make me angry.''
  But I learned something. I met an incredible man. His name was Nelson 
Mandela. His strength, coming after 20 some years in prison, I 
recognized that his strength and his power laid in his tranquility.
  I said, ``Here is a man that has learned to harness his anger, to 
discipline his pain, to harness his desire to retaliate.'' I said, 
``That is what I need to try to move myself toward, the ability to 
discipline and harness and challenge the anger so that, ultimately, it 
is one of constructive engagement with people around problem solving.''
  I leave here not as a cynic. And there have been days when this place 
has been at an all-time low, we all know this, but I do not leave 
cynical. I leave with my idealism and my enthusiasm intact because, 
when you look around, each of us have had the privilege of walking to 
the floor of Congress with the total freedom to express ourselves 
across whatever lines divide us, to say whatever we felt was important 
to say. That is an incredible gift, and I am privileged to have had 
that opportunity to have that gift.
  For those of you who stop long enough to try to see me in more than 
one dimension, thank you. For those of you who stop long enough to 
embrace me as a friend, thank you. For those of you who came together 
with me in the spirit of battle, to try to right the wrongs, to 
challenge the evils, to make this world a better place for our children 
and our children's children, thank you. For those of you who each day 
just said, hi, Ron, thank you.
  I leave you with just one challenge. Continue to battle on behalf of 
the people.
  I raise the question that I raised once with the Speaker Gingrich. I 
said, Mr. Gingrich, if we are successful in tearing down this 
institution, what podium do I mount to advocate on behalf of my 
constituency?
  So let us be guided by wisdom and judgment.
  You call me civil. Well, I came from a generation that was in a 
hurry. I walked in the door. I wanted to kick the door in and bring 
change immediately.
  My generation said, peace, when do you want it? Now. Freedom, when do 
you want it? Now. So I was impatient. But you folks taught me the two 
most

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incredible lessons of life, the lesson of patience and the lesson of 
humility.
  You forced me to have to walk up and down that Hill 27 years in a row 
fighting the same old battles. You taught me that I was not a cocky 
dude, that one guy against 434 could change the world. But if we care 
about each other and we respect each other and we respect this 
incredible opportunity we have, together we can change the world.

                              {time}  1400

  I learned a concept called homeostasis when I was in college, which 
said that institutions manage to find a way to come into balance. Well, 
a member of the Gray Caucus is leaving, and the good Judge from Florida 
grew a gray beard, so the House is in balance on that issue. An old guy 
is leaving, and a young African-American is coming to be sworn in 
today. This institution is in homeostasis.
  Thank you for caring; thank you for the privilege of working with 
you. It has been the most incredible and high honor of my life, and I 
hope that whatever life has in store for me beyond today will be a 
fraction of the excitement, the enthusiasm and the thrill of serving in 
this institution.
  Thank you very much.

                          ____________________