[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 55 (Monday, May 8, 2000)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E663]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

[[Page E663]]



    REGARDING THE WRITINGS OF THE FORMER REPRESENTATIVE RON DELLUMS

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. BARBARA LEE

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                          Monday, May 8, 2000

  Ms. LEE. Mr. Speaker, I am happy to present to the house a review by 
Don Hopkins of a book by my friend and mentor, Ron Dellums. It is a 
moving account of his rise in politics, and the major contribution he 
made to Congress, and indeed to the world as follows:

                 Dellums' ``Lying Down With the Lions''

       Former Berkeley/Oakland Congressman Ronald Dellums has 
     recently written a book, co-authored by his long time 
     colleague, H. Lee Halterman, entitled ``Lying Down with the 
     Lions.''
       Since I was also a staffer of the Congressman, one would 
     expect that I would have laudatory things to say about his 
     book. I will not disappoint such expectations. My interest is 
     to urge people who are interested in the struggle for social, 
     political and economic justice in America to read the book 
     and enjoy what it says about us, as much as what it says 
     about him and for the movement he came to symbolize, and to 
     the best of his abilities, to lead.
       My thought is that for Bay Area residents who take pride in 
     the Niners, the Sharks, the Raider, the Warriors, the 
     Stanford Cardinals and the Cal Bears et al., it does not seem 
     a reach to suggest that they take pride in a home grown 
     warrior on the political front, like Ron Dellums.
       Ron, after all, grew up in West Oakland. West Oakland, it 
     might be recalled, is that picturesque corner of Oakland that 
     Leslie Stahl of 60 Minutes recently defamed as a ``pocket of 
     poverty'' within an otherwise prosperous Northern California. 
     What Ms. Stahl apparently did not know, and what one can 
     discern by reading ``Lions,'' is that their exists serious 
     progeny from West Oakland that has contributed monumentally 
     to the success of this nation.
       For the purpose of this note, however, I would focus on 
     Ronald V. Dellums. As we speak, there is a federal building 
     named after him. There is a train station named after his 
     uncle and mentor, a hero of the civil rights movement, the 
     distinguished C.L. Dellums. There are countless public 
     improvement projects and programs in the era, like the Chabot 
     Science Center, the Federal Building, the Military Base 
     projects, that are extant and flourish because of his work 
     and sacrifice.
       More than all of this, however, what should be known by Bay 
     Area residents is the tremendous contribution Dellums made to 
     the politics of this area, this nation, and most 
     significantly, the world.
       Ron Dellums' politics, which were grounded on the notion of 
     ``coalition'', gave meaning, structure and guidance, across 
     race, gender and class lines, to a set of politics that first 
     led to the significant inclusion of minorities in elected 
     positions in the Bay Area of Northern California. The same 
     politics, grounded in the notion that all of the world's 
     ``Niggers''--the excluded and disenfranchised--working 
     together, could ``change the world.''
       This particular characterization of logic and integrity of 
     a coalition of all the disenfranchised later became passe 
     (Nigger could only be snickeringly referred to, as during the 
     O.J. Simpson trial, as the ``N'' word, and what a crock, for 
     a word so well worn) the fact is that the political activists 
     of the Bay Area and other urban communities touched by the 
     intractable logic of Dellums' ``Nigger speech'', was a 
     critical ingredient in the development of the coalition, the 
     struggle, that ended America's involvement in the war in 
     Vietnam. It gave philosophical and emotional resonance to 
     Lyndon Baines Johnson's call for a War on Poverty, and it 
     laid the groundwork for a political movement that brought 
     Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, Women, Handicapped people, Gays, 
     etc., into the limelight of political recognition, 
     respectability, and redress.
       Dellums built upon the eloquence and commitment of the 
     likes of John George and Bob Scheer to give the antiwar 
     movement focus, legitimacy, credibility, multiethnic support 
     and moral tonality. His passion for justice for the 
     disenfranchised was responsible for the impact his presence 
     made in the legislative agenda and the political culture of 
     the United States Congress.
       Upon his retirement from the Congress, members from both 
     sides of the aisle, testified, that his efforts contributed 
     significantly to the culmination of the cold war, the 
     modification of military procurement policies that prolonged 
     that war, and to a social agenda that promised a peace 
     divided that would benefit the poor and less fortunate in 
     American communities.
       None of what Ron Dellums accomplished can be known without 
     some effort. Books have been written about the Kennedys and 
     Martin Luther King, about Whitney Young, Andrew Young, Jesse 
     Jackson and other heroes of that struggle. Those of us, who 
     believe in the importance of coalition politics, the politics 
     that binds the interests of the disenfranchised American 
     across ethnic, gender, age, and sex lines, could not be 
     fulfilled by any chronicle of the era, without a book by and 
     about Ron Dellums.
       Dellums' book, which is a short but thoughtful 
     recapitulation of the issues that first led him to Congres--
     the philosophical and political ideas that sustained his 
     growth as a public person, and the impact these had on the 
     political process, is therefore a ``must'' to read for anyone 
     who seeks a handle on the flavor of what happened and why 
     during the critical years of our national life when he served 
     us as an activist, a local legislator, and a member of 
     Congress.
       I trust that those who lived through the tumultuous 
     sixties, seventies, and eighties in the Bay Area, who lived 
     through the saga of the Black Panther Party, the antiwar 
     movement, the struggle for the liberation of South Africa, 
     and the struggle to end the Cold War, will take time to read 
     the Dellums tome.

     

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