[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.''
____________________