[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 108 (Wednesday, July 28, 1999)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1671]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                  HONORING JUDGE FRANK M. JOHNSON, JR.

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. EARL F. HILLIARD

                               of alabama

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, July 27, 1999

  Mr. HILLIARD. Mr. Speaker, we are a country of strong men united by 
great philosophies, yet we are divided by realities that built this 
country by stripping a people of their land in order to call it our 
own, and by enslaving another people to a lifelong labor of blood and 
sweat to build our homes.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today, on the brink of a new millennium, not to 
point out the immaculate flaws of our cherished American dream. Rather, 
I rise to salute, Judge Frank M. Johnson, Jr., a man who Time Magazine 
in 1967 deemed ``one of the most important men in America'' and whose 
life exemplifies the biblical statement ``to whom much is given . . . 
much is required.''
  Judge Johnson is a man who dedicated more than four decades of his 
life to ensuring that no man be limited by separate facilities that 
inherently violate his right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of 
happiness. He is an American icon, a legendary Federal jurist from 
Alabama whose historic civil rights decisions forever shattered 
segregation in a ``Jim Crow'' South.
  His monumental ruling striking down the Montgomery bus-segregation 
law as unconstitutional created a broad mandate for racial justice that 
eternally eliminated segregation in pubic schools and colleges, 
bathrooms, restaurants and other public facilities in Alabama and 
across the South.
  Judge Johnson was an innovator and a crusader for all mankind who 
will be remembered eternally for giving true meaning to the word 
justice.
  Today, I rise to honor Judge Johnson for helping to bring equality to 
the American Dream. I honor him for bringing justice to an inhumane 
system of law. I honor him like Martin Luther King, Jr., for allowing 
justice and righteousness to roll down like a mighty stream.

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