[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 164 (Thursday, November 18, 1999)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E2438]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                    TRIBUTE TO FRANCES L. MURPHY II

                                 ______
                                 

                       HON. ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON

                      of the district of columbia

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, November 17, 1999

  Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor Frances L. Murphy II, 
publisher emeritus of the Washington AFRO-American Newspaper, and a 
great lady who has had major responsibility for this great asset to the 
city of Washington and the communities surrounding it. Her hard-hitting 
editorials and well written stories provide the local African American 
community with news and information that cannot be obtained elsewhere. 
She has trained and nurtured many young journalistic talents, who have 
taken what they learned at the AFRO to institutions as diverse as the 
NAACP, the Washington Post, and African Americans on Wheels magazine.
  Ms. Murphy's grandfather, John H. Murphy, Sr., founded the AFRO in 
1892. Her father, Dr. Carl Murphy, was editor and publisher of the 
AFRO-American Newspapers from 1918 until his death in 1967. But, Ms. 
Murphy did not start at the top. She learned her business inside out, 
starting as a library assistant, and moved up the ladder to reporter, 
then editor, magazine editor, and managing editor before becoming 
publisher.
  In addition to her work as publisher of the AFRO, Ms. Murphy has 
spent much of her time as an educator. She started in the Baltimore 
schools in 1958, where she stayed until 1964, when she took her first 
position in higher education at Morgan State College. Until She retired 
from teaching in 1991, she held various teaching positions at 
University of Maryland Baltimore County, Buffalo State College, and 
Howard University. Her students rated her a top professor, and said, as 
others have said about her journalism, ``She is tough but fair.''
  Ms. Murphy is well known for her contributions to her community, 
having served as a member of the National Board of Directors of the 
NAACP and of the Board of Trustees of both the State Colleges of 
Maryland and the University of the District of Columbia. She is on the 
board and serves as treasurer of the African American Civil War 
Memorial Freedom Foundation. She also is an active member of St. Luke's 
Episcopal Church, where she is a member of the flower guild, a lector, 
a member of the Search Committee and president of the Episcopal Church 
Women. All this from a woman who has been a distinguished journalist 
and publisher and managed, as well, to raise three children, and now to 
be grandmother to fourteen grandchildren, and great-grandmother to two.
  Mr. Speaker, Ms. Murphy and her accomplished family are a 
quintessential family of service and a source of great and enduring 
pride to the entire Washington region. Like thousands of 
Washingtonians, I count Frances Murphy as a friend whom I greatly 
admire. I ask my colleagues to join me in a well deserved honor for the 
model life and career of Frances L. Murphy II.

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