[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 118 (Wednesday, September 9, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H7469-H7470]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   RONALD V. DELLUMS FEDERAL BUILDING

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. LEE. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 3295 which 
designates a Federal building in Oakland, California, as the Ronald V. 
Dellums Federal Building. The naming of this building after my 
distinguished predecessor, Ronald V. Dellums, is truly an honor that 
many of his constituents his colleagues and his supporters from across 
the Nation have awaited as a mark of recognition and as a symbol of our 
appreciation for the role that he played, the leadership that he gave, 
the work that he did, and the spiritual uplift that he gave to the 
critical issues of our time.
  Ron, as constituents, colleagues, family, and friends call him, we 
have

[[Page H7470]]

called him that from the time actually of his membership on the 
Berkeley City Council in 1967, Ron became the focus and the leader of 
an ever growing group of people who were hungry for leadership on the 
critical issues of the late 1960s and the 1970s. These were people, 
activists who were upset about the Vietnam war, angry about injustices 
against blacks, people of color, women, and all those yearning to be a 
part of the larger America that would be moral and ethical in our 
domestic and foreign policy.
  Ron V. Dellums, like his elder contemporary, Dr. Martin Luther King, 
Jr., ignited the activists for civil rights and activists for peace. 
For over two decades, this coalition provided some of the greatest 
political energies and social and political achievements that we have 
ever known.
  This coalition propelled Ron to the House of Representatives where as 
a result of his distinguished work in the Armed Services Committee, now 
the Committee on National Security, he was elected to the chair and 
later the ranking member of that committee. He was valued and loved 
because of the role that he played on that committee and on the floor 
of Congress.
  He spoke to the fears and the doubts regarding the war in Southeast 
Asia. He addressed passionately the need for social and economic 
justice at home and abroad. He also helped to forge the annual 
Alternative Budget, which was a product of the Congressional Black 
Caucus and the Congressional Progressive Caucus. This budget was of 
tremendous importance to his district and his national constituents 
because it provided a necessary voice for many of our deepest moral 
considerations.
  The people who worked with Ron, who supported Ron, who became the 
people also who loved Ron, value this designation of the Ronald V. 
Dellums Federal Building. I want to thank my colleagues for honoring 
Ronald V. Dellums by designating this building in his name.

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