[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 48 (Thursday, March 25, 1999)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E589-E590]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         WOMEN'S HISTORY MONTH

                                 ______
                                 

                               speech of

                         HON. CONSTANCE MORELLA

                              of maryland

                    in the house of representatives

                       Wednesday, March 24, 1999

  Mrs. MORELLA. Mr. Speaker, during this Women's History Month, I'd 
like to tell you about Johnnie Carr, Daisy Bates, and Diane Nash, three 
women of color who helped shape America.
  How many of you know these women and how their work contributed to 
the greatest social revolution of our time?
  The role of black women in the civil rights movement has largely been 
overlooked by historians. Yet, black women throughout the South 
organized protests, strategized, rounded up volunteers for marches and 
sit-ins, raised money, registered voters--and put their lives on the 
line.
  This network, which crisscrossed cities, towns, and rural areas 
across the South, provided the underpinning for Dr. King's 
organization.
  The famous Montgomery bus boycott of 1955-56 that put Dr. King in the 
nation's spotlight for the first time was started by and sustained by 
women, who put their reputations, their lives, and their jobs on the 
line. Women organized carpools through their churches and found funds 
to help support those who had been fired because of their participation 
in the boycott.
  Johnnie Carr of Montgomery helped bail out Rosa Parks who had 
triggered the boycott when she refused to give up her seat on a bus to 
a white man. Mrs. Carr helped organize that famous boycott and went on 
to organize the Montgomery Improvement Association and the struggle to 
desegregate life in Montgomery.
  During the course of the boycott that lasted for 382 days, Johnnie 
Carr arranged for church and private carpools to carry people to their 
jobs and helped clothe and feed those who had been fired or blacklisted 
because of their support of the boycott.
  Mrs. Carr told the Chicago Tribune in 1994,

       We focused on segregation in every phase of life. We were 
     willing to risk bodily harm and even death. . . . The bus 
     company personnel did so many things to intimidate us, but we 
     stood firm in refusing to ride the segregated buses. People 
     walked together in the pouring rain, holding hands and 
     singing.

  The boycott was a success, and ultimately, the U.S. Supreme Court 
declared segregation on Alabama's buses to be unconstitutional.
  Daisy Bates story is set in Little Rock, Ark., where she was a leader 
in the fight to desegregate the city's all-white Central High School. 
She and her husband ran the Arkansas State Press Newspaper and were 
active in the local chapter of the NAACP. Daisy Bates was the 
``coordinator'' of the nine children who were selected to attend 
Central High School, starting on September 4, 1957.
  Many of you, if you are old enough, will remember watching events 
unfold in black and white on your TV sets. On September 3, the Governor 
of Arkansas, Orval Faubus, ordered the National Guard to surround the 
school to prevent the nine students from entering the school. His 
actions were, of course, in direct violation of the 1954 Supreme Court 
ruling that outlawed ``separate but equal schools.''
  ``The parents [of the black children] were justifiably afraid for 
their children's safety,'' Bates told the Chicago Tribune. ``But we 
felt that we had to risk everything . . . 
  A mob lying in wait for the arrival of the children tried to lynch 
15-year-old Elizabeth Eckford. On September 23, they tried again to 
enter the school, succeeded but had to leave because of the threatening 
mob outside. Bates demanded that President Eisenhower intervene and 
violence spread throughout the city.

  The President dispatched 10,000 members of the National Guard and the 
101st Airborne division and Central High was integrated.
  Although Daisy Bates ``won,'' it was not without a great price. She 
and other local NAACP leaders were arrested and she and her husband 
lost their newspaper business when they refused to cave-in to the 
demands of advertisers that she dissuade blacks from applying for 
admission to Central High School.
  Diane Nash grew up on Chicago's South Side and in 1959 went off to 
Nashville to attend Fisk University, one of our nation's leading 
historically black colleges. ``There were no restaurants in downtown 
Nashville where black people could sit and eat in an unsegregated 
manner, and only one movie theater, where we were relegated to the 
balcony,'' Nash told a Chicago Tribune reporter in 1994.

[[Page E590]]

  She began attending workshops on nonviolence and soon found herself 
involved in lunchcounter sit-ins that eventually spread across the 
South. Beginning on New Year's Day 1960 in Greensboro, N.C., and 
Nashville, the civil rights activists targeted the lunch counters of 
Woolworth's Walgreen's and Kresge's and other local restaurants. By 
that summer, Nashville became the first city in the South to 
desegregate its lunch counters. Another victory for nonviolence--and 
good organization.
  Nash went on to help form the Student Nonviolent Coordinating 
Committee (SNCC) and in 1961 helped to organize the first Freedom Ride 
from Birmingham, Ala., to Jackson, Miss., in which blacks and whites 
rode the bus together in violation of state laws.
  ``Riders were beaten repeatedly at the various stops, and buses were 
set ablaze,'' Nash later recounted. ``The riders were considered so 
dangerous that many gave sealed letters to be mailed in the event of 
their deaths.''
  Nash went to jail for her efforts to integrate interstate bus travel 
and went on to serve on a Presidential committee that made 
recommendations for what was to become the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
  History teaches us many things, but the most important lesson we can 
learn from Johnny Carr, Daisy Bates and Diane Nash and their struggle 
for civil rights is that through courage, commitment, and a willingness 
to work together, each and every one of us can overcome our most 
difficult and sometimes seemingly insurmountable challenges.
  Let me close with an excerpt from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s last 
sermon, the one he gave in Memphis on April 3, 1968, the night before 
he as murdered:

       Let us rise up tonight with a greater readiness. Let us 
     stand with a greater determination. And let us move on in 
     these powerful days, these days of challenge to make America 
     what it ought to be. We have an opportunity to make America a 
     better nation. . . .

  In this House of Representatives I am pleased to serve with 13 women 
of color who are also helping to shape our great America. Working 
together, we can envision and realize that America.

                          ____________________