[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 6 (Tuesday, February 1, 2000)]
[House]
[Pages H149-H154]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 HERITAGE AND HORIZONS, THE AFRICAN-AMERICAN LEGACY AND THE CHALLENGES 
    OF THE 21ST CENTURY, AN IMPORTANT THEME FOR BLACK HISTORY MONTH

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Reynolds). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 6, 1999, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Lewis) is 
recognized for 60 minutes.

[[Page H150]]

  Mr. LEWIS of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from 
South Carolina (Mr. Clyburn).
  Mr. CLYBURN. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman so much for 
yielding to me.
  Mr. Speaker, today is February 1, the first day of Black History 
Month. We thought it will be a good time for us to open up some 
discussion of what we consider to be a very, very important theme for 
this year's celebration. The theme for the year 2000 is heritage and 
horizons, the African-American legacy and the challenges of the 21st 
century.
  Mr. Speaker, as I think about this theme, I think about two 
quotations, the first written by George Santayana, who wrote that 
``Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.'' I 
think all of us remember the past of this great Nation. It is a past 
that is very checkered.
  All of us are aware of the history of the African-American experience 
in these United States, having arrived here as a people in 1619, at a 
time when they were considered to be property and brought against their 
will to serve out an existence of 244 years in slavery. That is ten 
generations.
  In 1863, our Nation brought an end to that institution. So for the 
past 137 years, African-Americans have lived an existence in our Nation 
as free people, albeit at one point upon the institution of freedom we 
were only counted as three-fifths of a person.
  When I think about that 137 years since 1863, Mr. Speaker, I think 
about another quotation that I want to use to lay the foundation for 
what I would like to say here this evening. It is a quotation from 
Winston Churchill, who says that, ``If we open up a quarrel between the 
past and the present, we shall find that we have lost the future.''
  So we come tonight not to open up a quarrel between our past and our 
present. Instead, we come to celebrate a very appropriate theme. We 
come to understand and appreciate and embrace our past. Just as 
importantly, we must acknowledge and celebrate the accomplishments of 
today, and address the challenges which we face in this new century, in 
this new millennium.
  As we prepare for African-American history month celebrations, I 
would hope that we will focus on critical issues that cry out for 
solutions. I would hope that all of us as Americans will look to the 
future with renewed hope.
  Mr. Speaker, I am proud to celebrate a portion of South Carolina in 
this august body. South Carolina has engraved on its great seal the 
Latin words ``dum spero spiro.'' Translated, that means ``As I breathe, 
I hope.'' It is with that sort of hope that I come tonight to call upon 
our citizens the Nation over to think about the challenges that we face 
as a people, as a Nation, as we celebrate this great history, this 
great legacy that African-Americans have in our Nation.
  I want to mention a couple of things before yielding the floor to my 
good friend, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Lewis), that I would hope 
that we will begin to think about as we think about this legacy.
  One of the challenges I think that we face this year as we lay the 
groundwork for this new millenium has to do with the judiciary. We 
still have in our Nation a problem with fair and proper representation 
of African-Americans in the judicial arena.
  For instance, South Carolina is located in the Fourth Circuit Court 
of Appeals.

                              {time}  1845

  It is one of five States, the other four being North Carolina, 
Virginia, West Virginia, and Maryland. There are 14 or 15 judges that 
sit on that court. And as I speak, there are four vacancies on that 
court. One of those vacancies has been there since 1991, 9 years. And 
in that 9-year period, we have had four nominations of African-
Americans to that court. Four nominations, three different African-
Americans. In all four instances, those nominations have not been 
considered by the other body.
  Now, four vacancies, four nominations, no consideration. That might 
not be all that important but for one thing. That is in the long 
history of this great Nation there has never been an African-American 
to sit on the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. There is something wrong 
with that picture. I do not think one has to be a rocket scientist to 
figure out what is wrong.
  As I speak, there is a nomination pending in the other body. It has 
been there for more than a year, yet no consideration being given to 
that nomination.
  We think that this year will be a good time for us to break with that 
past. This year would be a good time for us to shut down the quarrel 
that currently exists between our past and our present so that we will 
not run the risk of losing our future.
  Mr. Speaker, if we look beyond the symbolism of judicial appointments 
and look at the meting out of justice, we find other threats to the 
credibility of our judicial system. One of them is something we call 
mandatory minimums.
  Now, the problem I have with mandatory minimums, and the challenge 
that it offers for the future, is the fact that many of the offenses 
that carry the most egregious mandatory sentences are offenses that 
have historically been looked upon as being those offenses that are 
more often the antisocial behavior of African-American offenders. Now, 
the problem with this, Mr. Speaker, is that in an instance such as drug 
crimes, if we look at the drug of cocaine, we will find that crack 
cocaine carries a 100-to-1 disparity in sentences over powder cocaine.
  The scientists have told us that there is no scientific difference 
between the two. So then the question must be asked why is there such a 
big difference in the sentences for the two?
  All the studies have indicated that there is only one difference 
between these two drug offenses. One of them is that in the instance of 
crack cocaine, it is more often African-Americans, and powder cocaine, 
more often white Americans.
  Here is the problem with that. If we were to look at the penalties 
for 5 grams of powder cocaine, one will get a probationary sentence and 
be charged with a misdemeanor. But 5 grams of crack cocaine is a 5-year 
mandatory jail sentence and a felony.
  Now, what has been the result of this discrepancy? As I stand here 
tonight, in the States of Alabama and Florida over 31 percent of 
African-American males have permanently lost the right to vote. 
Permanently, over 31 percent. In five other States, that figure is over 
25 percent. And in six other States, 20 percent. Some of the experts 
have predicted by the year 2010 at the rate we are going, 40 percent of 
African-American men in this country will be permanently without the 
right to vote.
  We think that the time has come and one of the challenges for us this 
year in this new century, this new millennium, is for us to revisit 
this issue and remove this impediment to citizenship because it is 
unfair and we ought to correct it forthwith.
  Mr. Speaker, let me give one other example about this, and then I 
will yield the floor to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Lewis). Let us 
take the instance of a 16-year-old who makes the mistake and is 
arrested for possession of 5 grams of crack cocaine. Even if that 16-
year-old pleads guilty to avoid, as happens so often, a jail sentence, 
he or she has just pled to a felony and will have permanently lost the 
right to vote in at least 17 of our states. Which means that at 36, 20 
years later, if this young man grows up and for 20 years lives an 
impeccable life, generally regrets the mistake, attempts to raise a 
family and raise children, at 36 in 17 of our states he or she will not 
be able to vote and would not be able to be a full citizen ever again 
under our current laws.
  We think there is something wrong with that. One of the challenges 
that we must face up to this month, this year during African-American 
History Month, is to look at these kinds of discrepancies.
  We have these kinds of discrepancies in the health care field as 
well. We have them in housing and education, employment and the census. 
And I call upon all Americans, as we pause this month to celebrate 
African-American History Month, let us not use it for vacations. Let us 
not use it to recite poetry, though poetry is great. Let us not use it 
solely to celebrate the great heritage, the great past that so many 
have left to us. But let us use this month to accept the challenges 
that are out there ahead of us.

  Let us join hands, black and white, young and old, rich and poor, of 
all

[[Page H151]]

walks of life and let us celebrate African-American History Month of 
the year 2000 by accepting these challenges and doing what we can to 
get these challenges that form so many impediments to a full quality of 
life for so many of our citizens removed from our national psyche.
  Mr. Speaker, with that I yield the floor now to the gentleman from 
Georgia (Mr. Lewis), whose history we all are proud to celebrate, but 
whose service here in this body and whose future I think is worth all 
of our participation.
  Mr. LEWIS of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, let me thank my friend, the 
gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Clyburn), a wonderful human being, a 
great leader as head of the Congressional Black Caucus, for helping to 
organize this special order tonight. We thank the gentleman for his 
very kind words, as well as the other participants.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to take a brief moment as we celebrate and 
commemorate African-American History Month to pay tribute to a group of 
young people. Mr. Speaker, on this day 40 years ago, history was made. 
February 1, 1960, four young black men, Joseph McNeil, Ezell Blair, 
Franklin McCain and David Richmond, all freshmen students at North 
Carolina A&T College, took seats at an all-white lunch counter in a 
little 5 and 10 store in downtown Greensboro, North Carolina. They 
ignited what became known as the sit-in movement. They changed our 
Nation forever.
  The sit-ins spread across the south like wildfire. In Nashville, 
Tennessee, we had been having what we called test sit-ins for several 
months. We had been studying the philosophy and discipline of 
nonviolence. We would go into a store and ask to be served, and if and 
when we were refused, we would leave. We would not force the issue. We 
would not cause a confrontation. We would go to establish the fact that 
we would be denied service because of the color of our skin.
  Every single day during the month of February for many of us as young 
black college students, we would sit in or sit down at lunch counters 
in an orderly and peaceful fashion. Doing our doing our homework. Not 
saying a word. Someone would come up to us and put a lighted cigarette 
out in our hair or down our backs, pour hot water, hot coffee or hot 
chocolate on us. Beat us and pull us off the lunch counter stools. We 
did not strike back because we had accepted the philosophy and the 
discipline of nonviolence.
  The number of students who wanted to participate in the sit-in grew. 
Most of them had not prepared as we had, so it was my duty and my 
responsibility as one of the students to draw up the basic ``do's and 
don'ts'' of the sit-in movement that read like: Do not strike back if 
abused. Do not lash out. Do not hold conversations with floor walkers. 
Do not leave your seat until your leader had given you permission to do 
so. Do not block entrance to stores outside and aisles inside.

                              {time}  1900

  It went on to say, ``Do show yourself friendly and courteous at all 
times. Sit straight. Always face the counter. Report all serious 
incidents to your leader. Refer information seekers to your leader in a 
polite manner. Do remember the teachings of Jesus, Gandhi, and Martin 
Luther King, Jr.: Love and nonviolence is the way.''
  These were the do's and don'ts of the sit-in movement that every 
student that got arrested in Nashville, Tennessee, on February 27, 
1960, had a copy of. The fact is that no matter how well you had 
prepared, no matter how much you planned what you would do and would 
not do, in the end you had to hand it over to what we called the 
spirit. You just had to let the spirit take control. That is why the 
song came along during the height of the movement, the song we would 
sing over and over again during this sit-in movement and later, ``I am 
going to do what the spirit says do. If the spirit says sit in, I am 
going to sit in. If the spirit says march, I am going to march. If the 
spirit says go to jail, I am going to jail. I am going to do what the 
spirit says do.''
  During the sit-in movement in 1960, in February, 40 years ago, so 
many young people, 16, 17 and 18 years old, grew up. They grew up while 
sitting down on lunch counter stools by sitting in, by sitting down, 
and by standing up for the very best in American tradition.
  As we celebrate African American history month, we pay tribute to the 
hundreds and thousands of young people that changed America forever. 
Tonight, Mr. Speaker, we pay tribute to the young people, young 
students, black and white, who were born only with a dream, who had the 
raw courage to put their bodies on the line. We all salute them tonight 
for their work, for their commitment and for their dedication to 
bringing down those signs that I saw when I was growing up in the 
American South that said white men, colored men; white women, colored 
women; white waiting, colored waiting.
  We live in a different America, in a better America because these 
young people, these young children made history. So tonight, Mr. 
Speaker, I would like to take the time to yield time to the gentleman 
from the great State of Illinois, the city of Chicago (Mr. Davis).
  Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman. I was just 
thrilled to listen to him give that history, that great and glorious 
history of which he was such an integral part and provided so much of 
the leadership for.
  I could not help but smile, both internally and externally, thinking 
about how meaningful that period was to those of us who were indeed 
teenagers at the time, to those of us who had the opportunity to simply 
take an idea, not really knowing where it was going to take us or what 
would happen as a result of the action, but simply an idea that, as the 
gentleman indicated, four freshmen college students would sit down, and 
because of the fact that they sat down, America ended up standing up.
  So I just want to commend the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Lewis) for 
being a part of the leadership of that movement, but then never 
stopping and understanding that it was the movement that undergirded 
him and prepared him for the continuation of the great work that he has 
done for the rest of his life. I am just pleased to be associated with 
him, and with my other colleagues who kick off Black History Month, 
African American History Month, in this manner.
  I also want to reinforce the comments that were made by the chairman 
of the caucus, the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Clyburn), whose 
leadership has been impeccable during this past year. And as he begins 
this year talking about the unfulfilled dreams, the unmet needs, I was 
listening to his wise counsel as he suggested to all of us throughout 
America that in addition to looking at the past, in addition to 
reflecting in the accomplishments that have been made, that in addition 
to just looking at the great academicians, athletes, entertainers, 
builders and developers and other heroes of African American life, 
those who have contributed so richly and so greatly to this country, 
that in addition to looking at that, in addition to looking at what 
Frederick Douglass taught us, that struggle, struggle, strife and pain 
are the prerequisites of change, rather than just talking about it, 
that we really need to use this month to be engaged in it.
  We really need to be making sure that all people who are not 
registered to vote in African American life make absolutely certain 
that, in honor of Black History Month, that in honor of Martin Luther 
King and Medgar Evers, that in honor of Jim Farmer, all of the others, 
that we make absolutely certain that during the month of February we 
make sure that we are registered to vote and that all of those who will 
receive census forms, rather than reciting the creation that James 
Weldon Johnson wrote, or rather than talking about the great portrait 
of Langston Hughes, or rather than just reminiscing about the 
tremendous music of Duke Ellington, that in addition to that, we make 
absolutely certain that everybody fills out their census form and sends 
it in so that each and every person in our community will in fact be 
counted, so that nobody can be missed, so that we will never be three-
fifths of a person again.

  So it is just a joy, it is a pleasure, and it is a delight to be here 
with the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Lewis) and the rest of my 
colleagues who use this evening to be so didactic, to be so 
informative, to be so inspirational, and

[[Page H152]]

to be so accurate and correct as we kick off the beginning of Black 
History Month, and I thank the gentleman and yield back to him.
  Mr. LEWIS of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend and my colleague 
for those very moving words and thank him for his participation, and I 
thank him for keeping the faith and for keeping his eyes on the prize.
  Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Well, we have had some great role models. My 
father is 87 years old, and we just moved him to Chicago from Arkansas, 
where he was living alone. And we were chatting the other day, and he 
said to me that in spite of how far we have come, we still have a long 
way to go. And I think he was absolutely correct. So I thank the 
gentleman.
  Mr. LEWIS of Georgia. There is still history to be made.
  Mr. Speaker, what I would like to do now is to yield to my good 
friend and colleague, the gentleman from the great State of North 
Carolina, from the city of Charlotte (Mr. Watt).
  Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague, the 
gentleman from Georgia (Mr. John Lewis), and what I thought I would 
like to do in tribute to this Black History Month celebration and in 
tribute to the wonderful four gentlemen who sat in at the Greensboro 
lunch counter is to read some excerpts from a publication called 
``Weary Feet, Rested Souls.''
  Before I do that, I just find it so ironic that we could be here in 
the chamber with people like the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Lewis) and 
kind of take for granted that he is our friend and our colleague and 
never really think of him as a hero, yet understand how heroic the 
things that he did to make our being here possible, how historic and 
heroic those things are.
  I feel much the same way about my good friend Franklin McCain. 
Franklin McCain and I have been good friends for a long time. I did not 
know him when he was one of the four participants at the Woolworth sit-
ins in Greensboro, North Carolina; but not long after I moved back to 
Charlotte in 1970-71, I met Franklin McCain. We turned out to be in the 
same fraternity, and our friendship has grown. His wife and my wife 
both worked in the school system there in Charlotte. We never think of 
Franklin McCain as a hero either, but we know that the things that he 
and the three colleagues of his who started the sit-ins in Greensboro, 
North Carolina, did were heroic, and we pay tribute to him. And I would 
like to do it in this way, by reading some excerpts.
  On February 1, 1960, after a late-night discussion, four black 
freshmen from North Carolina A&T University decided to try to get 
served in the sprawling Woolworth store. A half hour before it closed, 
they bought a few small items then sat down at the counter and waited. 
One asked for a cup of coffee. There was no violence, no arrest, no 
media, and no service. When the store closed, they got up and walked 
out, peacefully, just like the gentleman from Georgia described earlier 
in his comments.
  Just as the somber-faced foursome left the building, a Greensboro 
News and Record photographer took the only surviving photograph of this 
historic event. The first three of these four had been members of the 
NAACP youth group in Greensboro, which had been active since the 1940s. 
On the left was David Richmond, wearing a beret. Next to him was the 
person that I now know as a friend and colleague, not as a hero or a 
superhero, next to him was Franklin McCain, the tallest of the group.
  And Franklin I would characterize as a gentle giant. He is about 6-4, 
6-5, but he is about as nice a guy as a person would ever want to meet. 
He would not harm a fly.
  Wearing a soldier's cap, Ezell Blair, Jr., was carrying a paper bag 
in one hand. And Joseph McNeil from Wilmington, North Carolina, wore a 
white coat.
  From the beginning, the Greensboro sit-ins electrified those who 
looked for a way to demonstrate discontent with segregation outside the 
courtroom.

                              {time}  1915

  The following day, on February 2, 23 men and women, mostly from North 
Carolina A&T University, visited the Woolworth's store with similar 
results to the day before. The next day the sit-ins had filled 63 of 
the 66 seats at the counter.
  Dr. George Simkins, a former constituent of mine until they changed 
my congressional district and again a person who I never think of as a 
hero but as a wonderful person and constituent now, was the President 
of the Greensboro NAACP and he called on CORE for advice about how to 
keep the campaign going.
  With CORE's help and the media spotlight, news of the sit-ins spread 
like concentric ripples on a still pond. Floyd McKissick, who later 
headed CORE, led sit-ins in Durham on February 8. ``CORE has been on 
the front page of every newspaper in North Carolina for 2 days'' 
exulted an organizer traveling to colleges and high schools in 
Greensboro, Raleigh, Chapel Hill, and High Point.
  Lincoln's birthday brought the first demonstrations in South 
Carolina, led by 100 students in Rock Hill. The next day, CORE led a 
sit-in in Tallahassee, Florida. By the end of March, the sit-ins had 
spread to 69 southern cities. Woolworth's national sales showed a 9 
percent drop from the previous March as a result of the boycott and the 
commotion caused by the sit-ins. These efforts produced the first wave 
of agreements to integrate not just Woolworth's itself but all the main 
downtown stores.
  By July, Greensboro and 27 other border State cities had adopted 
integration in some form. By spring 1961, 140 had come around. Pledges 
to desegregate hardly brought calm to Greensboro. In spring of 1963, 
more than a thousand protesters led by North Carolina A&T student 
council president Jesse Jackson, again a person that we know and 
respect but never think of as a hero, marched each night, raising the 
arrest totals to more than 900.
  On May 19, CORE president James Farmer held a march of 2,000 to the 
Greensboro Rehab Center, then serving as a makeshift jail. Swayed by 
these massive turnouts and boycott of Greensboro businesses, the city 
agreed to a bi-racial commission and marches were suspended. Greensboro 
was slow to implement changes, however, prompting 500 exuberant 
students to occupy the area in front of city hall.
  The following week, 50 Greensboro restaurants, motels, and theaters 
abolished the color line in exchange for an end to street 
demonstrations.
  I bring this to a conclusion with this kind of fitting note.
  Woolworth's closed its doors here in Greensboro in 1993. The final 
meal at the counter was attended by all four original protesters, and 
the management reverted to its 1960 menu prices as a ``tribute'' to the 
four of them. Today plans are afoot for a three-floor museum created by 
a nonprofit group called Sit-in Movement, Inc. A portion of the 
counter, now shaped like four successive horseshoes, ringed with 
turquoise and pink vinyl seats, will remain on street level in the 
back. Portions of the original counter are in the Greensboro Historical 
Museum as part of an exhibit, but one section of the original remains 
in the store.
  Outside on the sidewalk are bronze footprints of the four original 
protesters, people that we never think of as heroes but who laid the 
groundwork for us to be able to sit at lunch counters and share, in an 
integrated setting, food and camaraderie and in a special way pave the 
way for us to be here as Members of this body and pave the way for me 
to be here as the representative of the part of Greensboro North 
Carolina where these sit-ins commenced 40 years ago today.
  Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Lewis) for 
leading this special order. And more so, I thank him and Franklin 
McCain and people that we never think of as heroes for the heroic 
actions and steps that they took to make it possible for us to be here 
and make this tribute today.
  Mr. LEWIS of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I say to my friend and my brother, 
the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Watt), I think it is so fitting 
and appropriate for him to be standing here as a representative of the 
great State of North Carolina because so much did take place in North 
Carolina, not just the sit-ins in Greensboro that got spread throughout 
the State and around the South, but a few months later in Raleigh, 
North Carolina, at Shaw University the founding of the Student 
Nonviolence Coordinating Committee, where many of the young

[[Page H153]]

people gathered under the leadership of Martin Luther King, Jr., where 
we really did come together to learn more about the philosophy and the 
discipline of nonviolence.
  Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would 
continue to yield just for an afterthought. Because on the Martin 
Luther King holiday, we had a wonderful tribute in Charlotte in which I 
read part of Lincoln's words to the backdrop of our Charlotte symphony 
orchestra; and during the reading, they were showing on a television 
screen kind of excerpts from the sit-ins, and later that night as I was 
taking my mother home, she said, You know, I saw your brother in those 
clips that they were showing. I said, You saw my brother? What do you 
mean you saw my brother? It turned out that my oldest brother, who was 
about the same age as Franklin McCain, was a student at Johnson C. 
Smith University and participated in the original sit-ins in Charlotte, 
and he was right in the front of the sit-in clippings that were shown 
on that evening.
  I certainly never thought of my brother as a hero of sorts. But it is 
amazing the heroic steps that people like my colleague and Franklin 
McCain and even my brother took in those trying times. And we of the 
younger generation that have a little bit more hair than the gentleman 
from Georgia (Mr. Lewis) thank him so much for everything that he did.
  Mr. LEWIS of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his kind 
words and thank him for participating in this special order.
  Mr. Speaker, what I would like to do now is to yield to my friend and 
colleague from the great State of Brooklyn, New York (Mr. Owens).
  Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Georgia for 
yielding to me. I, too, would like to congratulate him on launching 
Black History Month in the very appropriate way that he is launching 
it.
  For years we have seen Black History Month take on different meanings 
for different people and great emphasis has been on the factual 
reciting of various achievements by blacks, people of African descent 
because of the fact that in history books and in the popular culture 
all of the facts of our positive achievements have been left out, and 
in the schoolbooks they have been left out.
  I, as a librarian in the Brooklyn Public Library, working with many 
teachers to try to get together a united effort to get the Board of 
Education of the great City of New York to have a more inclusive 
curriculum with respect to black history, just to get the facts out was 
always so difficult.
  Facts are just the beginning. And, of course, the facts are very 
important. The details of some of the kinds of things that the 
gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Watt) has just recited are still 
unknown. The details of the development of the whole movement is not 
known.
  I did not know that 400 to 500 students eventually sat down in 
Greensboro and made the whole city of Greensboro respond across the 
board, the hotels and stores, everybody. I did not know that fact, and 
I followed it pretty closely.
  The important thing that I would like to add to the dialogue tonight 
is the fact that what those students did and what the gentleman from 
Georgia (Mr. Lewis) did as a member of the Student Nonviolence 
Coordinating Committee did was to set in motion a process which was the 
real legacy of the civil rights struggle and of the people of African 
descent in the United States that ought to be highlighted and carried 
forward during every Black History Month, and that is the legacy of 
resistance, you know, resistance to oppression.
  The victims resisted and they resisted nonviolently and they resisted 
en masse. And there was a whole chain reaction of events that led to 
successful resistance that the whole world now has copied. We do not 
realize how unique it was.
  I was born in Memphis, Tennessee, raised in a city right between 
Arkansas and Mississippi. The brutality of the oppressive class at that 
point, the oppressive white leadership at that point, the brutality 
that you confronted when you tried to do anything, the danger of being 
lynched, the danger of being brutalized was so very real until most 
people do not realize what those students did when they went up against 
established order.
  They had to summon up a great deal of courage, and my colleague, of 
course, repeatedly had to summon up a great deal of courage against 
very violent attacks. The violence and the brutality was such that when 
I graduated from Morehouse College in 1956, I left the South defeated, 
feeling that nothing much was ever really going to change.
  I am so happy that those who came after us just 4 years later in 1960 
were proving that that was not the case, that if students stood up, 
they could set in motion a whole series of events which not only 
electrified a mass movement in Greensboro, in Nashville, all over the 
South, but it came north.
  I was an old man with kids in 1963, but as a member of Brooklyn CORE, 
we led a movement which had 800 people get arrested protesting 
discrimination in the employment industry. And of course, it went all 
over the country. And beyond that, we must realize it went all over the 
world, that when the Berlin Wall fell, they were singing ``We Shall 
Overcome'' in the streets of Berlin. When the Czechoslovakian people 
celebrated the withdrawal of the Soviet troops, they were in the street 
are singing ``We Shall Overcome.''
  The whole pattern and whole message has gone out to the whole world. 
Victims do not have to accept it. The victims can resist. The victims 
can resist with nonviolence, and they can organize in such a way to 
prevail. That is the greatest legacy that the descendants of the 
American slaves have left to the world, the legacy that the victims can 
resist, the victims can overcome.
  Singing ``We Shall Overcome'' is quite appropriate. When we do it 
with nonviolence, when we resist, we are able to overcome. I salute the 
gentleman and all of my colleagues for getting this Year 2000 
celebration of Black History Month off to a great start, emphasizing 
that legacy which is so important and which we have contributed not 
only to ourselves and to this Nation but to the entire world. We shall 
overcome.
  Mr. LEWIS of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New 
York (Mr. Owens), my colleague and associate, so much for his 
leadership. I thank him for all he did as head of CORE in Brooklyn and 
for being here tonight to participate in this special order.
  It is appropriate for him to mention the theme song of the movement 
``We Shall Overcome.'' After the 1960 effort, 5 years later, the 
President of the United States, President Lyndon Johnson, came and 
spoke to a joint session of the Congress when he introduced the Voting 
Rights Act and he said, ``We Shall Overcome'' several times. He said it 
to the Congress, but he said it to the nation, ``We Shall Overcome.''
  So we have come a distance, we have made a lot of progress since 
February 1, 1960.
  It is now, Mr. Speaker, my pleasure and delight to yield to the 
gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Payne), my good friend from the city of 
Newark.
  Mr. PAYNE. Mr. Speaker, let me first of all commend the gentleman 
from the great State of Georgia (Mr. Lewis) for calling this special 
order highlighting the Greensboro sit-in that began on February 1, 40 
years ago. I rise to join my colleagues in honoring this very important 
and historical day in history.

                              {time}  1930

  Let me begin by asking, What is a patriot? Usually the term 
``patriot'' evokes images of our first President, George Washington. As 
a young boy, every class that I went to in my elementary and secondary 
schools in Newark, New Jersey, had a picture of George Washington. He 
was the patriot, he was the father of our Nation.
  If you were to ask me what a patriot is, however, I would certainly 
say George Washington was one, but I also would think of the four 
particular young men who we have been talking about tonight in 1960: 
Ezell A. Blair, now Jibreel Khazan; Franklin E. McCain; Joseph A. 
McNeil; and David L. Richmond. These were young men who were patriots, 
also, because they sparked an American revolution of their own. As we 
think of these two images, they may seem unrelated, but they are in 
fact joined by the underlying principle of their actions, liberty, 
freedom and fairness.

[[Page H154]]

  These young men were in search of more than just food and beverages. 
Their hunger and thirst was much deeper. They wanted to drink from the 
fountain of equality and freedom and were therefore attacking the 
social order of the time. The first day there were four; the second day 
20. What ensued was that thousands started. As they say, ``If you start 
me with 10 who are stout-hearted men, then I'll soon give you 10,000 
more.'' Of course today we have to be gender sensitive, so I would 
paraphrase it by saying, ``Start me with 10 who are stout-hearted men 
or women and I'll soon give you 10,000 more.''
  They used to say, ``It is better to build boys than to mend men.'' We 
have a difficult time making it fit, but I say men and women, too. But 
let me say that these four young men started a revolution.
  So in a world full of images and symbols, I can think of nothing more 
powerful than the idea of these four young men, because it is said that 
nothing is as important as a dream whose time has come. As these men 
sat silently and calm at Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro, North 
Carolina, in 1960, it showed the courage and image that embodied a 
movement that changed the face of America.
  As I conclude, Frederick Douglass once said, in 1857, ``Those who 
profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation are men who want 
crops without plowing the ground. They want rain without thunder and 
lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its waters. 
Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never 
will.''
  I conclude again by saying that we are thankful for those young men 
at that time. I also participated in Newark by us supporting them in 
those days, picketing Newark's Woolworth's store. I know recently 
Woolworth's announced the closing of 500 or so stores. I was just 
wondering whether that lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, was 
one of those that finally closed.
  Mr. LEWIS of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my friend 
and colleague, the gentleman from New Jersey, for those kind and moving 
words.
  I yield to my friend and colleague from the great State of Iowa (Mr. 
Ganske).
  Mr. GANSKE. I thank my friend from Georgia for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, between 1882 and 1968, thousands of black men and women 
and children were hanged, burned, shot or tortured to death by mobs in 
the United States. Of those crimes, only a handful ever went to a grand 
jury. In New York City at this moment, there is a photo exhibition in 
which 60 small black and white photographs are on display. The name of 
this exhibition is Witness. It is at the Roth Horowitz Gallery. I am 
looking on page 17 of the latest New Yorker Magazine which shows one of 
the photographs from this exhibit. It shows two men, James Allen and 
John Littlefield, two black men, who in August 1930 were lynched. It 
shows them hanging from a tree. It shows a large crowd at their feet. 
There are 13- and 14-year-old young girls in this crowd. Some of them 
hold ripped swatches of the victims' clothing as souvenirs. This 
photograph became a souvenir and 50,000 of these postcards were sold at 
50 cents each.
  I thank the gentleman for having this special order tonight. Here in 
Washington, we have a Holocaust museum. It would be my sincere hope 
that this photographic exhibit of 60 small photographs comes to 
Washington and travels around the country. I think every American 
should see this as part of a very tragic part of our American history.
  Mr. LEWIS of Georgia. I want to thank the gentleman from Iowa for 
bringing that to our attention. I have seen the exhibit. I have seen 
the book. It is very, very moving. It makes me very sad sometimes to 
think that in our recent history that our fellow Americans would do 
this to other Americans. Some of these photographs makes me want to 
really cry. It is very painful to see. I think that is a wonderful 
suggestion, to bring this exhibit to Washington, let it travel around 
America, because we must not forget this part of our history. Just 
maybe we will never ever let something like this happen again in our 
own country.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to thank all of my colleagues for participating 
in this special order.

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