[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 46 (Thursday, April 23, 1998)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E665]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[[Page E665]]
                 TRIBUTE TO DR. CONRAD L. MALLETT, SR.

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. JOHN CONYERS, JR.

                              of michigan

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, April 23, 1998

  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to Dr. Conrad 
L. Mallett, Sr., president emeritus of Capital Community-Technical 
College in Hartford, Connecticut. A noted educator, historian and 
culture bearer, Dr. Mallett entered the arenas of education and 
government service to press the fight for justice and equality for 
America's oppressed and overlooked citizens.
  Although he and his wife, Dr. Claudia Jones Mallett, have spent the 
past 13 years in Connecticut, Dr. Mallett grew up and was educated in 
my hometown of Detroit, Michigan. That's where we first met. Our 
friendship has continued since.
  Dr. Mallett is an African-American historian who still believes that 
our nation can live up to its glorious promises; he is a husband, 
father and grandfather who takes great joy in seeing his offspring 
dream dreams that he could not even imagine as a poor, black child 
raised by a widowed mother in the segregated South and later the 
intransigently rigid North.
  Dr. Claudia Jones Mallett, his wife of 46 years, attributes his 
sterling character and his drive to his mother. ``She was a very strong 
woman who was a domestic worker. She imparted to him steadfastness and 
the work ethic. He has a strong belief that it is education that 
brought African-Americans as far as they have gotten, and it is 
education that will move them further along.
  ``He believes that the more we are able to allow every person to 
become an educated person, the more successful we will be in our drive 
to become full citizens in this country. Whenever he has encountered 
barriers that get in the way of that goal of full citizenship, he has 
tried to move them out of the way.''
  Far more often than not, he has succeeded.
  Born in Ames, Texas, about 40 miles south of Houston, Dr. Conrad 
Mallett lost his father at age 10. His mother, Mrs. Lonnie Mallett, 
worked to support him and his sister, Nora. The family moved to Detroit 
in the early 1940s when Mrs. Mallett learned that domestics could earn 
twice as much in Detroit.
  ``Sometimes my husband tells a story about those days,'' Dr. Claudia 
Mallett recalled. ``His mom sometimes would take him and his sister to 
work with her. They had to be very quiet while she worked because they 
were not supposed to be there, so they had nothing else to do but read. 
Both he and his sister are avid readers, and I don't think I know of 
any person who is more well read than my husband.''
  After graduating from Detroit's Miller High School, a young Conrad 
Mallett was drafted, trained in the South Pacific as an Army Air Corps 
engineer and eventually was stationed on Baffin Island, off the 
southern tip of Greenland.
  After his honorable discharge, he returned to Detroit and started a 
steady climb toward his goal. While working at the U.S. Post Office, he 
used the GI Bill to take some courses at the Cass Tech Veterans 
Institute. After a few years, he left the post office (``I found it 
dull and unromantic'') and began walking the beat as a Detroit police 
officer. At the same time he enrolled in college full time.
  ``I say with some pride that the years from 1952-57 were the most 
productive of my life. I married, we had three children and I completed 
college and worked full time. Had it not been for my wonderful wife, I 
would not have been able to do any of those things,'' he said of those 
years. With the exception of one year when he received a scholarship 
from the Mott Foundation, he always held full-time jobs while earning 
his undergraduate and post graduate degrees. Today he holds a B.S. in 
Education and an Ed.D. in Education Administration from Wayne State 
University and an M.A. in American History from the University of 
Michigan.
  The young ambitious father and husband was driven to succeed because, 
as he explained it, ``I come from a generation that had as its goal 
surviving, dealing with a racist society, dealing with prejudice. We 
just tried to make it day to day.
  ``Today I take great pride that my grandchild can say, `I will be the 
next Bill Gates or a doctor or a lawyer.' Those goals were not as 
accessible in the 1940s and 50s as they are now. I was always looking 
for a better quality of life, one with some dignity and respect.''
  Dr. Mallett still remembers how his high school counselor tried to 
steer him into carpentry even though he had expressed an interest in 
engineering. After graduating from college, Dr. Mallett taught American 
History and social studies in the Detroit Public Schools. In fact, he 
taught the first African-American history course offered in the Detroit 
District. After seven years, he left the school system and took a job 
as head of the training unit of Detroit anti-poverty program.

  He may not have known it then, but Dr. Mallett was about to set off 
on a career that would earn him a shining reputation in public service 
and education. He had made sure he was prepared to take advantage of 
the opportunities that came his way. ``If you are prepared, sometimes 
good things happen,'' he said. ``It all goes back to the statement 
black parents made to their children during Reconstruction: Get as much 
education as you can because they can never take that away from you.''
  Dr. Mallett's commitment to social justice extends far beyond the 
job. For example, in 1964 a fund-raising benefit was scheduled in 
Detroit for the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee. Dr. Mallett 
and his wife agreed to put their home on the line to cover the cost of 
renting Detroit's Cobo Hall if the benefit did not raise enough money 
to pay the rental fee.
  In the 1960s Dr. Mallett became the first African-American Assistant 
to Detroit Mayor Jerome Cavanagh, a bold young Irish Catholic lawyer 
who, with the support of the black community, staged an upset victory 
over the incumbent mayor. ``I had finished everything but the 
dissertation on my doctorate when I was appointed to that job,'' Dr. 
Mallett said.
  As Director of the city's Department of Housing and Urban Renewal, 
Dr. Mallett helped steer the city through the turbulent 1960s.
  When Cavanagh left office, Dr. Mallett came to the attention of Wayne 
State University which needed someone with experience in public housing 
to oversee its building expansion. The University Board of Governors 
appointed him Director of Community Extension Services and then 
Director of the Office of Neighborhood Relations.
  In 1973, he was named Vice President for Academic Affairs at Wayne 
County Community College, Michigan's largest community college. He 
served in that position until 1977 when Detroit Mayor Coleman A. Young, 
the first African-American Mayor of Detroit, tapped him to be director 
of the Detroit Department of Streets, Traffic and Transportation. Six 
years latter, academia called again. Dr. Mallett left Detroit to serve 
as Vice President for Academic and Student Affairs at the Community 
College of Baltimore, a position he held until 1985 when he was 
appointed President of the Capital Region Community College District in 
Hartford, Connecticut. Upon the dissolution of the regional district, 
he was appointed President of the Greater Hartford Community College. 
In 1992, he became the first President of Capital Community-Technical 
College, a comprehensive, publicly funded two-year college program 
offering career, technical and transfer programs. On June 30, 1996, he 
retired as president emeritus.
  Recipient of many academic honors and leadership awards, he was named 
Educational Administrator of the Year by the Black Educational 
Administrators Association while at Wayne County Community College. The 
Southeastern Michigan Council of Governments presented him with its 
Distinguished Service Award. In recognition of his exemplary 
leadership, he received the Anthony Wayne Award from Wayne State 
University.
  Throughout their marriage, Dr. Mallett and his wife, now a retired 
science teacher, always kept their primary focus on their three 
children. Conrad Mallett, Jr. is Chief Justice of the Michigan Supreme 
Court; Lydia Mallett, Ph.D., is Director of corporate Diversity of the 
General Mills Corporation, and Veronica Mallett, M.D., is a faculty 
member at Wayne State University Medical School in Detroit and is 
pursuing advanced research in obstetrical and gynecological surgery.
  Though the children were raised in a middle-class environment, they 
were never allowed to forget the historic struggles and sacrifices that 
led to their lifestyle. Justice Mallett said he will never forget a 
trip he and his dad took to Houston, Texas. ``I was 17 years old, and 
that's not exactly the time you want to make a cross-country trip with 
your dad. But when we got to Houston, my dad said we were having dinner 
that night at the Rice Hotel. He said I had to put on a suit. It was 
August, and Houston was about 199 degrees. It was so hot. When I asked 
whey we had to go inside to eat, my dad said, `Because I never walked 
in the front door of the Rice Hotel. I was a bellboy there and made it 
all the way up to be bell captain, but I never walked in through the 
front door.' '' That night they both walked in through the front door.
  Justice Mallett said his father brought a fierce integrity to the 
process of public service delivery. ``He said that you may not always 
be able to do your best for everyone, but in general those persons less 
able than you to fend for themselves are the ones to whom you must give 
your best.'' And that, Mr. Speaker, is how Dr. Conrad Mallett, Sr. 
lives his life. Our nation is richer because of his contributions.




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