[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 18 (Tuesday, February 2, 1999)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E103-E105]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


          REMEMBERING THE REVEREND DR. EDWARD ANDERSON FREEMAN

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. DENNIS MOORE

                               of kansas

                          HON. KAREN McCARTHY

                              of missouri

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, February 2, 1999

  Mr. MOORE. Mr. Speaker, my colleague, Ms. McCarthy of Missouri, and I 
join today in paying tribute to the late Reverend Dr. Edward Anderson 
(``E.A.'') Freeman, who we are saddened to report passed away on 
January 26, 1999, in Kansas City, Kansas. His funeral was held this 
morning at the First Baptist Church of Quindaro, where he had been 
pastor for fifty years before retiring in 1996.
  Reverend Freeman was the fifth of seven sons of James and Ollie Watts 
Freeman, born in Atlanta, Georgia, on June 11, 1914. He was educated in 
the Atlanta public schools, and received an A.B. from Clark College in 
Atlanta. After attending U.S. Army Chaplaincy School and Harvard 
University, he received his bachelor of divinity, master of theology 
and doctor of theology degrees from Central Baptist Theological in 
Kansas City, Kansas. His doctoral thesis was published as a book, 
``Epoch of Negro Baptist and the Foreign Mission Board'' in 1953, and 
remains a standard textbook for teaching religious progress from the 
earliest beginnings of African-American life in the United States. 
After his early career as principal of Austell School in Georgia, 
Reverend Freeman served as pastor of two churches and as a U.S. Army 
chaplain from 1942-46, attaining the rank of major. After discharge 
from the Army, he was called to pastor the First Baptist Church in 
Kansas City, Kansas, where he served our community for fifty years.
  Reverend Freeman, simply put, was a leader in local, national, and 
international communities. He was a visionary who was driven to assist 
and empower people, fighting as a civil rights activist, community 
leader, and president of the Kansas City chapter of the National 
Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Additionally, he 
served on the Kansas City, Kansas, Planning Commission from 1955 to 
1995 (as its chairman for 29 years), and served on the Kansas City, 
Kansas Crime Prevention Council. He also was a leader in church 
affairs, serving as: president of the Missionary Baptist State 
Convention of Kansas; president of the Sunday School and Baptist 
Training Union Congress of the National Baptist Convention, U.S.A.; 
first vice president of the Baptist World Alliance for five years in 
the 1980s; and as adjunct professor and member of the board of 
directors of Central Baptist Theological Seminary for many years.
  In addition, we must note the numerous awards Reverend Freeman won 
throughout his career which reflect his dedication to dialogue between 
different faiths, races and cultures, such as the Meeker Award from 
Ottawa University, which is given to individuals who have demonstrated 
a life of sacrifice, service to the disadvantaged, profound stewardship 
of life, unrelenting humanitarian services, and worthiness as a role 
model; and the Martin Luther King, Jr., Citizenship Award for Community 
Service, which embraced the philosophy of Dr. King and was presented by 
the Kansas City Kansas Martin Luther King, Jr., Holiday Celebration 
Committee.
  We join with the many friends, colleagues and community associates of 
Reverend Freeman in mourning this profound loss. As the Kansas City 
Star noted in its obituary, Reverend Freeman, throughout his career, 
was known for ``interceding in numerous personal, business, and church 
matters at the request of those involved.'' He will, of course, be 
greatly missed by his wife, Ruth Anthony Freeman, and their three 
children: Edward A. Freeman, Jr.; Constance M. Lindesay; William N. 
Freeman; their son-in-law, Horace B. Lindesay, Jr.; six grandchildren; 
and many nieces, nephews, and cousins.
  Mr. Speaker, in closing, we add to the Record two articles from the 
Kansas City Star, reviewing the life of this remarkable man, which are 
aptly entitled, ``Death claims a role model: Rev. E.A. Freeman was 
local, national social crusader,'' and ``Commitment was the hallmark of 
Rev. E.A. Freeman's life.''

               [From the Kansas City Star, Jan. 29, 1999]

Death Claims a Role Model Rev. E.A. Freeman Was Local, National Social 
                                Crusader

                          (By: Helen T. Gray)

       He was a man of God, and a man of his word. When the Rev. 
     E. A. Freeman put his weight behind a cause, things would 
     happen.
       ``If he said he would do something, you could count on him 
     to do it,'' said the Rev. C. L. Bachus, a fellow minister and 
     longtime friend. ``Only the Lord could stop him.''
       Freeman, 84, a longtime religious and civic leader, died 
     Tuesday at the Alzheimer's Center of Kansas City in Kansas 
     City, Kan. He had been pastor of First Baptist Church of 
     Quindaro for 50 years before retiring in 1996.
       The Rev. Jesse Jackson, long a friend of Freeman's, will 
     deliver the eulogy at the service Tuesday.
       ``He was a very well respected member of our community,'' 
     said Carol Marinovich, mayor of the Unified Government of 
     Wyandotte County/Kansas City, Kan. ``He was a gentleman, and 
     a gentle man, very committed to all the people of the 
     community.
       ``Freeman's influence extended beyond Kansas City. He was 
     first vice president of the Baptist World Alliance, a 
     worldwide organization of Baptist churches, for five years in 
     the 1980s. He worked with people of different races, ethnic 
     backgrounds and cultures around the world.
       During the Iranian hostage crisis in 1980, Freeman was 
     among African-American ministers who went to Iran to try to 
     open lines of communication between Islamic and Christian 
     leaders.
       ``I had a great respect for him.'' said the Rev. Stacey 
     Hopkins, pastor of First Baptist. ``Everybody respected him. 
     He was always willing to help the younger preachers. Many of 
     us tried to pattern ourselves after him. . . .  He always 
     wore a shirt, tie and jacket. Always. He was a good 
     example.''
       The Rev. Nelson Thompson said he worked with Freeman on 
     several projects and admired his longevity.

[[Page E104]]

       ``He was a mentor for me,'' said Thompson, president of the 
     Greater Kansas City chapter of the Southern Christian 
     Leadership Conference. ``He was a rare individual. Not many 
     people can pastor a church for 50 years.''
       Freeman was a past president of the Sunday School and 
     Baptist Training Union Congress, the Christian education arm 
     of the National Baptist Convention U.S.A. Inc. He also was a 
     past president of the Missionary Baptist State Convention of 
     Kansas. He had been president of the Kansas City, Kan., 
     chapter of the NAACP; a member of the Kansas City, Kan., 
     Planning Commission from 1955 to 1995, serving as chairman 
     for 29 years; a member of the Kansas Board of Probation and 
     Parole; and a member of the Kansas City, Kansas, Crime 
     Prevention Council.
       When Freeman retired, he said his greatest desire had been 
     to help people. He recalled speaking with city officials 
     about problems that minorities faced and riding with police 
     during the riots after the death of the Rev. Martin Luther 
     King Jr., ``trying to keep everybody calm.''
       Alvin Brooks, a former assistant city manager in Kansas 
     City, said that his friend of more than 45 years had few 
     peers, either as preacher or prompter of social change.
       ``He could really preach a sermon,'' said Brooks, ``But he 
     wasn't just a preacher. He could walk into a room, and he had 
     such a presence. . . .  He was a great role model for young 
     African-American men and young men aspiring to be 
     ministers.''
       The funeral service will be at 11 a.m. Tuesday at First 
     Baptist Church, Fifth Street and Nebraska Avenue, Kansas 
     City, Kan. Visitation will be from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday 
     and from 9 to 11 a.m. Tuesday at the church.
       It was Freeman's wish that Jackson deliver his eulogy. 
     Jackson spoke at First Baptist several times. Religious 
     leaders from throughout the community and various parts of 
     the country are expected to attend the services.
       He leaves his wife, Ruth Anthony Freeman; his children, 
     Edward A. Freeman Jr. of San Diego, Calif., Constance M. 
     Lindesay and William N. Freeman, both of Kansas City; a son-
     in-law, Horace B. Lindesay Jr.; six grandchildren; and a 
     great-grandchild.


     
                                  ____
               [From the Kansas City Star, Feb. 1, 1999]

        Commitment Was the Hallmark of Rev. E.A. Freeman's Life

               [By Steve Paul, Kate Beem and Erica Wood]

       The first indication that the Rev. E.A. Freeman could be a 
     persuasive force in his adopted home of Kansas City, Kan., 
     came in the spring of 1946.
       Then a 32-year-old Army chaplain and major about to leave 
     the service, Freeman arrived at the invitation of a friend. 
     The First Baptist church, at Fifth Street and Nebraska 
     Avenue, was between preachers. Freeman agreed to give a guest 
     sermon.
       He proved quite up to the task. This was, after all, the 
     Edward A. Freeman who at the age of 16 had won an oratorical 
     contest in his hometown of Atlanta.
       Well, the short version of the story goes, Freeman so 
     impressed the leaders of First Baptist that they had a little 
     problem. They quickly solved it by withdrawing an offer made 
     to their pastor-to-be and giving the job to Freeman.
       It turned out that Freeman was not just taking on a job 
     when he moved his wife, Ruth, and three children from Atlanta 
     that June. He was taking on a way of life.
       Over the next 50 years, until his retirement in 1996 and 
     his death a week ago today, Freeman's way of life was 
     commitment. As most people who knew him put it, he embodied 
     the idea of commitment, not only to his God and to his 
     church, but to his community.
       Preacher, pastor, minister to those in need. Bridge 
     builder, conciliator, a quiet civic giant. Husband and 
     father. Orator and scholar. Advocate for social and economic 
     justice.
       Freeman's accomplishments were many and his influence vast.
       The Rev. Jesse Jackson--civil-rights leader, activist and 
     presidential candidate--will deliver the eulogy at Freeman's 
     funeral today. Jackson said that, after Martin Luther King 
     Jr., the most important person in his political life was the 
     Rev. E.A. Freeman of Kansas City, Kan.
       ``He was a real freedom fighter,'' Jackson said.


                        civic, religious pillar

       Leon Lemons, a retired banker, an old friend and a trustee 
     of First Baptist, noted how important Freeman was to the city 
     when he recalled what H.W. Sewing, a founder and president of 
     Douglass Bank, told him some 40 years ago.
       ``We should not let Reverend Freeman get out of this 
     city,'' Sewing told Lemons. ``He's a man with vision, a man 
     with integrity. He's a man who can get things done.''
       By that point, after a little more than 10 years in Kansas 
     City, Kan., Freeman had run for the school board and the 
     state Legislature. Although unsuccessful, those campaigns 
     gave him a public forum to speak up about social welfare and 
     segregation.
       But he didn't need a political campaign to raise his voice: 
     In 1949, he excoriated the Wyandotte County chairman of the 
     American Red Cross over a racial affront at a ``Victory 
     Dinner,'' threatening a boycott of the agency's fund drives. 
     The next year, he helped bring pressure on the owner of two 
     local movie theaters, which until then had denied admission 
     to blacks.
       In the years to come, he would spearhead housing 
     developments and become involved in many improvements in 
     Kansas City, Kan., as a member of the city's Planning 
     Commission for 40 years and its chairman for 29. There were 
     disappointments, too, and failures amid the long economic 
     decay of his city, but he never stopped fighting for what he 
     believed was right.
       In the 1970s and '80s, he helped establish some of the 
     first homeless shelters in the community, said Mary Sue 
     Severance of the United Way of Wyandotte County.
       ``He seemed to be everywhere in the community,'' Severance 
     said.
       In civic dealings, Freeman's trademark was his tranquil 
     demeanor. He often was a peacemaker. The Rev. Nelson 
     Thompson, president of the Greater Kansas City chapter of the 
     Southern Christian Leadership Conference, used code words for 
     the white and black communities when he said Freeman ``had 
     great influence uptown, yet he could work in the northeast 
     and everybody respected him.''
       In ministerial dealings, his tenure produced Sunday 
     services that usually lasted two hours or more. He was prone 
     to offering two sermons, a spiritual one and a political one. 
     He gave his congregation political advice on issues of the 
     day. Although he never told them how to vote, he gave strong 
     hints, said his daughter, Connie Lindesay.
       Freeman had a legendary amount of energy and drive. Arieta 
     Mobiley, a former church deaconess, said it wasn't unusual to 
     drive by and see Freeman's car parked outside the church at 1 
     or 2 in the morning.
       Even after he retired, Mobiley said, Freeman went to the 
     church every day for two years.
       ``There weren't many people who had the energy he did,''
       Lindesay said. ``His persistence, his vision, that will, 
     that drive. To him, it was, `I'm going to get to that goal,' 
     and that goal had to do with the commitment to and investment 
     in the people around.''
       He was humble about his accomplishments but had the courage 
     essentially to start his own civil-rights movement in Kansas 
     City, Kan., said Kansas City Mayor Emanuel Cleaver.
       ``When he came along,'' Cleaver said, ``times were really 
     dangerous for a black man who would stand up and declare his 
     somebodyness.''
       Freeman well knew that the fight for social justice and 
     equality for African-Americans involved not only overcoming 
     racism but also, in the words of his friend and colleague, 
     the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., ``its perennial ally--
     economic exploitation.''


                            A Jackson mentor

       Jackson and Freeman first met in the 1950s. Jackson was a 
     King disciple; Freeman was a leader in the National Baptist 
     Convention. By 1959, however, the convention had become 
     increasingly uncomfortable with King's high-profile activism. 
     A rift developed, but while Freeman actively stuck with the 
     convention, he never lost contact with King or Jackson.
       After King's assassination in 1968, Jackson stood alone. 
     Freeman reached out to him, inviting him back and re-
     introducing him into powerful circles within the National 
     Baptist Convention.
       ``He took that risk and adopted me in a spiritual sense,'' 
     Jackson said. ``I feel so indebted to him.''
       Jackson returned to Kansas City several times, and in 1976, 
     at his first revival, he chose Freeman's First Baptist as the 
     location for the week-long spiritual event.
       Jackson said his speeches for students from two area high 
     schools helped him form the National Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, 
     his long-running, grass-roots organization promoting social 
     justice.
       Thompson said Freeman was a model of a minister who became 
     involved in politics. Along with two other titans of the 
     black community, the Rev. Wallace S. Hartsfield and the Rev. 
     A.L. Johnson, Freeman inspired and mentored a younger 
     generation of political-activist preachers--Thompson and 
     Cleaver among them. To them, he advocated action over 
     political posturing.
       ``He used to tell me, `Reverend, talk will kill anything. 
     You've got to just keep it low. Get it put together before 
     you talk about it too much.'
       ``He really wasn't quiet, but he didn't do a lot of talking 
     about what he was doing until it was done.''
       Talk is one thing. Public speaking is another. And Freeman 
     was a master at oratory.
       He filled his many speeches and sermons with scholarship 
     and poetry. Not only did he make the scripture sing, but he 
     also quoted extensively from Shakespeare and Tennyson, from 
     Keats and Browning and Kipling. ``And he didn't just read 
     it,'' his daughter said of his great capacity for recalling 
     classic poems from memory, ``he spoke it as if he himself had 
     written it.''
       ``Once you heard him deliver a sermon,'' Cleaver said, 
     ``you would know quickly that this was no ordinary man. He 
     was touched divinely in ways many can only imagine.''
       ``He was academic and educational, yet he could be right 
     down to earth,'' Thompson said.
       In the late '70s, Thompson heard Freeman deliver a speech 
     on the steps of the Kansas Capitol. His topic was the 
     Exodusters, the black migrants who settled in Kansas after 
     the Civil War. Thompson had been unaware of the depth of 
     Freeman's scholarship or his capacity for research and 
     history. And he was moved.

[[Page E105]]

       ``It was a profound historical address,'' Thompson said. 
     ``I shall never forget it.''


                         The power of education

       Education was extremely important to Freeman and his 
     family. He sacrificed so his children could go to college. He 
     long remembered how difficult it had been to pursue his own 
     education.
       In the late 1930s, Freeman desperately wanted to go to 
     college. But his widowed father was struggling to support 
     seven sons.
       Freeman interviewed with the president of Clark College in 
     Atlanta and begged to attend classes there. He succeeded, 
     working his way through as a custodian, and eventually 
     graduated with a degree in education.
       After his arrival in Kansas City, Kan., he earned advanced 
     degrees, including his doctorate in theology from Central 
     Baptist Theological Seminary in 1953. At the time, the 
     opportunity to earn such a degree was rare for a black 
     minister.
       Education remained important throughout his involvement in 
     the National Baptist Convention, USA. Freeman became 
     president of the organization's Congress of Christian 
     Education (as it's now called) in 1968.
       His influence was almost immediate. His dynamic leadership 
     and speechmaking helped increase attendance at its annual 
     meeting by the thousands over his 15-year tenure.
       ``It's his personality,'' said the Rev. Ellis Robinson, 
     Freeman's successor at First Baptist. ``He knew how to get 
     things done.''
       In his work for the National Baptist Convention and other 
     programs, Freeman traveled extensively--all around the 
     world--often at a moment's notice.
       But his first priority was always his church. He always 
     made sure that things would get done in his absence.
       ``Ministers and clergymen play a lot of different roles,'' 
     said Thompson. ``The pastoral role is one of shepherding, 
     caring for and protecting and watching over the flock. . . . 
     Nobody I know of played that role as well as Rev. Freeman. He 
     was just a rare individual. He could make you feel good when 
     you felt bad; he was very inspirational and uplifting.''
       There's something else about Freeman that people talk 
     about. He loved to tell jokes. Every time he spoke, people 
     could expect to hear two or three jokes along the way.
       Of course, he had two kinds of jokes: those he could use in 
     sermons and those he couldn't.
       One of his very popular jokes dated from the days of 
     ``streaking,'' when college kids would dash through public 
     places in the buff. Freeman's joke had to do with some older 
     women in a nursing home. The punch line: One fellow goes, 
     ``What was that?'' And the other goes, ``I don't know, but it 
     sure did need ironing.''
       Even in his last days, that joke was still able to touch 
     people in unexpected ways. One former church member was 
     visiting just a couple of weeks ago. Sitting at his bedside, 
     this person said, ``Reverend Freeman, I'll always remember 
     that old joke about the senior citizens.''
       And, as his daughter Connie Lindesay tells it: ``He just 
     beamed. His eyes just twinkled.''

     

                          ____________________