[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 46 (Tuesday, March 23, 1999)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E521-E523]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
LEARNING THE LESSONS OF HISTORY
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HON. TOM LANTOS
of california
in the house of representatives
Tuesday, March 23, 1999
Mr. LANTOS. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate Capuchino High
School of San Bruno, California, for an extraordinary program they have
instituted called ``Sojourn to the Past.'' Envisioned by Jeff
Steinberg, a history teacher at Capuchino High School, this ten-day
trip recently led eighty-five high school students through a history of
the civil rights movement that was made very personal.
The trip began in Washington, D.C., and ended in the National Civil
Rights Museum in Memphis, in the hotel room where Martin Luther King,
Jr., was martyred. Along the way the students met with several major
figureheads of the civil rights movement, including Chris McNair,
father of one of the Birmingham Four, Elizabeth Eckford, who de-
segregated Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, and my own
good friend, Congressman John
[[Page E522]]
Lewis, who introduced the students to his philosophy of non-violence.
History came alive for these young people as they followed the trail
of the most significant movement of the twentieth century. They found
it impossible to take their own civil rights for granted when
confronted with first-person accounts from those who risked their lives
fighting to attain those very rights.
But a sense of the reality of history was not the only thing the
students took home. The testimonies of the people with whom they met
emphasized forgiveness and tolerance, fairly foreign concepts to
American high school culture. The idea of using non-violence and
tolerance as a mode of dealing with day-to-day problems was initially
received with suspicion but seemed to have hit home by the end of the
trip.
In a letter written to Congressman John Lewis, junior Kristin Agius
wrote: ``Your message has made me rethink my idea of what it means to
be important. . . . I've come to the conclusion that a step forward,
even a small step, is better than aspiring for something that will only
benefit myself.''
Mark Simon, a reported from The San Francisco Chronicle, accompanied
the students on their journey to the past. I ask that Mr. Simon's
excellent report on this outstanding educational experience be included
in the Record.
Civil Rights Tour
[From the San Francisco Chronicle, Feb. 28, 1999]
Day 1: Thursday, Feb. 11, Washington, D.C.
They had flown east all day, leaving the morning light of
the Bay Area for the nighttime darkness of the nation's
capital. With barely a pause, they piled into two buses, went
to dinner, and then, as the hour neared 10 p.m., they went as
a group to the Lincoln Memorial, where they sat on the steps,
huddled together.
Then they listened to a recording of the Rev. Martin Luther
King Jr.'s conscience-rousing sermon to the 1963 March on
Washington, in which he told an assembled multitude of
250,000 that he had a dream of true equality and justice for
a nation riven by hatred and racism.
And so it began.
Eighty-five students from Capuchino High School in San
Bruno, the most diverse in the San Mateo Union High School
District, had embarked on a 10-day journey called ``Sojourn
to the Past.'' It was organized by Jeff Steinberg, a history
teacher gifted with energy and devotion to match his vision.
The students went wherever the civil rights movement had
gone, seeing the people who had been there, hearing tales of
heroism and sacrifice and walking in the footsteps of
greatness large and small.
This was a spirituay journey--a journey of forgiveness and
tolerance, of faith and hope, a journey to the past and for
the future.
It was to be an education. There were lessons to be
learned.
FORGIVENESS
It was a sustaining theme of the trip. Everywhere the
students went, they met historic figures who had been
mistreated, neglected, imprisoned and beaten.
And to a person, these people had found within themselves
the capacity to forgive.
At the Jewish Community Center in Washington, D.C., they
met Ernest Green, one of the Little Rock Nine, who integrated
the all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Ark., in
1957, amid violence, daily torture and taunts.
Short, balding, bespectacled and a little portly, Green was
good-humored, upbeat and remarkably short on the details of
his year at Central, something that clearly frustrated the
students.
But his message was that the students should keep looking
forward, not back.
``Life is not like a VCR. There's no reverse,'' he said.
In Birmingham, Ala., they met with Chris McNair, a county
commissioner and father of one of the four little girls
killed in a Birmingham church bombing in 1963.
``I'm a happy man, in spite of the things that happened to
me,'' he said in a deep, rough voice.
``You're precious to me,'' he said. ``In this world,
justice means so much. I hope you can reach a point where you
can get out of the hate mode. In that mode, you're the one
who truly suffers.''
When the trip was over, and the students had been to the
deepest South and the deepest parts of their soul, African
American senior Ke'Shonda Williams said she had learned
something from the spirit of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
``(King) never had hate in his heart for anybody. He found
the goodness in his heart to forgive people. If someone did
something wrong to me, I just couldn't forgive them for it. I
haven't been through half the things he'd been through. If he
could forgive them and move on, I think I should be able to
forgive. I'm going to try.''
The student's capacity for forgiveness was put to its
hardest test in Montgomery, Ala., in the office of George
Wallace Jr., associate commissioner of the Alabama Public
Service Commission, and son and namesake of the famous
governor.
Wallace has just moved into his office, and the floor,
chairs and tables were covered with yet-to-be-hanged pictures
and memorabilia.
Dressed in a pinstripe suit, his voice soft and his words
thoughtfully chosen, Wallace told the students about his
father.
In his most famous speech, his inaugural address in 1963,
Governor Wallace declared ``Segregation now, segregation
tomorrow, segregation forever.''
That was urged upon him by his political advisers, said his
son.
``His choice was not to use the word segregation. His
choice initially was to use the word freedom,'' Wallace said.
His father made peace with the state's African Americans--a
peace brought by a Christian revelation--and sought their
forgiveness. He also sought their votes, and won re-election
in 1972 with a substantial bloc of black votes.
``I hope you'll look at his life in totality. . . . I know
he deeply regretted some of the things he said. If he was a
leader in the Old South, he sought to be a leader in the New
South,'' he said.
Anne Kelly, a white junior, stormed from the room, angry
tears in her eyes.
On another day, Anne also had tears in her eyes while
discussing her own Methodist Church's refusal to sanction
same-sex marriages.
``Would Jesus have turned his back on these people? You
don't need to like it, but you need to tolerate it. That's
what tolerance is about,'' she said.
On this day, she had found Wallace wanting.
``He couldn't admit there was no justification for what
(his father) did. He never said opportunism is wrong. In
order for an apology to mean something, you have to accept
responsibility for what you did,'' she said.
During the trip, students were required to write letters to
the people they met that day. Jennifer Lynch, a white junior,
wrote Wallace that she had tried to remain open-minded.
``I think it did become apparent that your father had
become a changed man,'' she said.
Tolerance
They went to Little Rock's Central High School, a brick,
fortress-like building with white-topped towers.
There, they heard from Elizabeth Eckford and Hazel Bryan
Massery, who are locked together forever in one of the most
famous photographs of the 1950s.
Eckford, a slender black girl in dark glasses, can be seen
walking alone through a hostile crowd. Behind her is Hazel
Bryan, her face contorted as she shouts an epithet at
Eckford.
Five years later, Bryan, now Hazel Massery, apologized.
Forty years later, the two are close friends.
On this day, they were on stage together to, as Massery put
it, ``make sense of the experience.''
In a carefully prepared and delivered presentation, they
took turns telling of their experiences.
As Eckford described her year at Central, her voice choked
repeatedly and she often wiped tears from her face.
Finally, the time came for questions.
No, Eckford said, she would not do it again, if she had the
chance.
Then, Darnell Ene, an African American junior, rose and
asked what word Massery was saying in the picture.
In fact, it's fairly obvious what she was saying--it's a
word so sensitive that it is simply called the ``n'' word.
Before Darnell could finish his question, Eckford, her
voice heavy with pain, cried out, ``No, no!''
Massery said, ``I choose not to repeat that.''
Said Eckford: ``Hate speech is always hurtful. There is
nothing you can learn by repeating it.''
But later, Darnell said he know what word Massery had used.
``I wanted to know what was in her mind,'' he said, ``I
wanted to know what was going through her mind when she did
it, what forced her into it, what was pushing her into doing
it.''
And when the trip was over, Mamoud Kamel, a junior whose
family came to the United States from Egypt five years ago,
found himself rethinking his own habits.
Mamoud said it is common practice among high school
students to use the word ``nigga,'' a slang form of the
notorious racial slur.
It's used frequently in rap music, and young people, at
least at Capuchino, have come to accept it as slang and to
distinguish between the harsher form of the word.
``That's the way we all talk right now, but I'm going to
stop saying this word,'' he said.
NONVIOLENCE
This one may be the hardest for the students.
They met often with people who had been beaten and then
stepped up for more.
In Atlanta, in a theater at the Martin Luther King Jr.
visitors' center, they met with Representative John Lewis, D-
Ga.
Lewis is one of the icons of the civil rights movement--
former head of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee,
arrested more than 40 times in nonviolent demonstrations, the
youngest speaker at the 1963 March on Washington and leader
of the first march from Selma, Ala., to Montgomery, the state
capital.
That march, on March 7, 1965, made national headlines when
state troopers savagely beat the marchers as they crossed the
Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma.
[[Page E523]]
Two weeks later, King led a second march that successfully
reached Montgomery.
Lewis, who suffered a broken skull in the first march, was
asked if he'd ever felt the urge to strike back.
``I never had any desire or urge to strike back in any
sense. I believe in nonviolence, not just as a technique, not
just as a tactic, but as a way of life and a way of living,''
he said.
In the back of the theater sat Darnell Ene, his fists
clenched as Lewis described the Selma beating.
``It's not right,'' he said later. ``You shouldn't do that
kind of stuff, and to make things worse, (the marchers were)
doing it nonviolently. They had a perfect reason to turn
violent, but they didn't. That shows signs of strength.''
It's a strength Darnell and his friend Chris Ramirez, a
Latino junior, said they don't have.
Darnell said he tries to walk away from disputes, but he
doesn't shrink from physical violence if he's pushed to it.
``I don't like backing down,'' Chris said. ``I can't back
down.''
The most spontaneous outburst by the students came in Selma
for a woman who did not back down.
In the rear room of Lannie's, a locally famous diner where
the students were served fried chicken, fried catfish and
fried pork chops, they met Annie Lee Cooper.
Cooper was a part of a group that in 1964 tried to enter a
local courthouse to register to vote.
Her path was blocked by Sheriff Jim Clark, an enthusiastic
and violent racist, who struck her.
Cooper, no devotee of nonviolence, hit the sheriff across
the side of the face, and a melee ensured that ended only
after Clark clubbed Cooper on the head with a nightstick and
two other police officers wrestled her into handcuffs.
When the students heard the story, they jumped to their
feet and applauded at length.
The applause was led by the otherwise quiet Michael
Mosqueda, a Latino junior, who said later that Cooper was a
hero.
``She didn't just take it and take it,'' he said.
But for Will Hannan, a white junior, and for others, the
message of nonviolence rang truest.
``You don't need to arm people with weapons, you need to
arm people with a certain philosophy, and if they really
intend to be warriors in the nonviolent battle, they need to
live nonviolence as a way of life,'' he said.
FAITH
Everywhere the students went, they went to church.
They visited Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, where King
had been pastor at the time of his death; Dexter Avenue
Baptist Church in Montgomery, a stone's throw from the state
capitol, where Jefferson Davis was sworn in as president of
the Confederacy and where King has his first pastorship;
and the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, where
the four girls were killed.
In the basement of the church, where the girls had been
going to Sunday school when 12 sticks of dynamite exploded,
the students heard from Lola Hendricks.
She had marched in Birmingham, and her 8-year-old daughter
spent five days in jail during the ``Children's Crusade,'' in
which the black youth of Birmingham were sent out against the
white establishment's fire hoses and police dogs.
Hendricks was asked if she was scared. No, she said.
``I felt the way we were being treated in the South, we
might as well be dead. So we had no fear,'' she told the
students.
And she knew God was with them, she said. He knew what they
had been through.
The students heard testimony--in the back room of a diner
in Selma, in church basements and in community theaters, and
in the offices of elected officials in Montgomery--that God
has played a hand in the civil rights movement, protecting
those who were marching, reassuring, those who were in doubt
and bringing light to those who had been on the wrong side of
the issue.
``In struggle, you need something to believe, a hope and a
faith to believe in,'' said Katie Gutierrez, a Latina junior
and herself a devout Christian. ``With all the hatred, you
need love somewhere, and God is love.''
THE PAST AND THE FUTURE
On the sixth day of the trip, history teacher Steinberg
rose early to appear on a local TV morning show in
Montgomery. He said he hoped the trip would have a meaningful
impact on the students.
``Maybe they become more compassionate and tolerant, and
maybe they get inspired to do better in school. * * * I
think the kids are going to come back changed people,'' he
said.
They probably will. But not all of them will. And not all
of them will right away.
Near the end of the trip, Monique Jackson, an African
American senior, said she didn't come back changed, but she
came back better informed and touched by the realization that
everywhere she went, Martin Luther King Jr. had been there.
``The struggle back then is what led us up to now. * * *
It's not really that bad now. You can't stop a racist from
being a racist, so what can you do? In these days, nobody
goes around hosing people down. Yes, there is still race
discrimination, sex discrimination. You just have to deal
with it as it comes.''
In a letter to Ernest Green, one of the Little Rock Nine,
Kristin Davis, a white junior, wrote: ``I believe in your
philosophy that you cannot live in the past. Those
experiences help shape your future, but you can't let them
run your life.''
African American junior Aisha Schexnayder wrote to Green:
``I've been through a lot in my life, but I can't see myself
going through all of that and still be able to crack a
smile.'' In a letter to John Lewis, white junior Kristin
Agius wrote: ``Your message has made me rethink my idea of
what it means to be important and what it means to make a
difference. I've come to the conclusion that a step forward,
even a small step, is better than aspiring for something that
will only benefit myself.''
As she contemplated the Montgomery's Civil Rights Memorial,
a setting of granite, smoothly flowing waters and a roll call
of civil rights martyrs, Clarissa Pritchett, an African
American junior, said: ``All the people worked so hard to get
us where we are today, and I worry that we're going to leave
it undone.''
Theresa Calpotura, a junior of Filipino descent, said she
would return from the trip determined to overcome her innate
shyness and to work on matters of racial and social
inequality.
``You have to start with yourself before you can change
anything else, and that's what this trip did for me,'' she
said. ``You have to know that tolerance is important. It's
basically the glue of our society.''
Theresa's close friend, Ronita Jit, a junior of Indian
descent, said she would return determined to start an
organization on campus that would include all races, and give
them the chance to connect across cultural lines.
``It just confirmed my determination,'' she said. ``I want
(us) to spend time with each other and get to know each
other. I know these things are far-fetched, but I'm going to
try.''
One of those who said she'll join Ronita's effort was
LaDreena Maye, an African American junior whose shyness
belies a depth of thought and feeling.
She wants to be a doctor, and she found inspiration to push
for her goal from those with whom the students met. She also
learned about those who did nothing while injustices and
cruelty were taking place.
``When I see something going on, I'll probably want to be
more quick to address it now, instead of just sitting and
letting it pass by,'' she said.
``I guess that now from the trip--knowing what we know--
that there is a bit of an obligation. I think we should all
want to come back and educate people about some of the things
we've learned on the trip. . . . I think something needs to
be done.''
DAY 10: Saturday, February 20, Memphis
The buses rolled up to the Lorraine Motel and into a time
warp.
Parked in front were a white Dodge Royal with massive,
olive-green tail fins and a white Cadillac convertible.
There was a plaque, bearing a quote from Genesis: ``Behold,
here cometh the dreamer. . . . Let us slay him and see what
becomes of his dreams.''
As the students stood outside the motel, Steinberg played
an excerpt from King's final speech, delivered with a
mystical passion the night before he was killed.
``Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity
has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just
want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up the
mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised
Land.''
The students then took a guided tour of the adjacent
National Civil Rights Museum, an interactive experience with
vivid displays that create a sense of time and place.
It was like watching their trip unfold before them on fast-
forward--except that the tour ended outside Room 306 of the
Lorraine Motel.
The covers of one bed are slightly rumpled. A plate of
catfish is set on the bed. Cigarette butts are crushed out in
an ashtray.
It was as though Martin Luther King Jr. might step back
through the door in just a moment.
Students who had been stoic throughout the trip stared into
the room as if stricken.
Some cried quietly.
Then, they went to a conference room upstairs and had
lunch.
Afterward, they stood, one at a time, and talked about what
the trip meant to them.
Many cried. Some had to leave the room.
Then they stood together and held hands and sang one chorus
of ``We Shall Overcome'' before heading home.
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