[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 112 (Friday, August 3, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8975-S8976]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  SENATE RESOLUTION 156--EXPRESSING THE SENSE OF THE SENATE THAT THE 
   REGIONAL HUMANITIES INITIATIVE OF THE NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE 
                  HUMANITIES BE NAMED FOR EUDORA WETLY

  Mr. COCHRAN (for himself and Mr. Lott) submitted the following 
resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Health, Education, 
Labor, and Pensions:

                              S. Res. 156

       Whereas Eudora Welty was the last of the 4 literary giants 
     (William Faulkner, Tennessee Williams, and Richard Wright) 
     who shaped both the Southern Literary Renaissance and 
     American literature in the 20th century;
       Whereas this grand lady of American literature both 
     embraced and transcended the South;
       Whereas in the words of critic Maureen Howard, ``It is not 
     the South we find in her stories, it is Eudora Welty's south, 
     a region that feeds her imagination and a place we come to 
     trust'';
       Whereas critic Maureen Howard noted that Eudora Welty was 
     ``a Southerner as Checkov was a Russian, because place 
     provides them with a reality, a reality as difficult, 
     mysterious, and impermanent as life'';
       Whereas Eudora Welty's literary legacy includes more than a 
     dozen novels, collections of short stories, essays, and books 
     of photography;
       Whereas for this impressive literary canon Eudora Welty was 
     awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1973, the French Legion of 
     Honor in 1996, the PEN/Malamud Award in 1992, 6 O'Henry 
     Awards, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the National 
     Endowment for the Humanities Frankel Medal, The National Book 
     Critics Award, and the Gold Medal of the National Institute 
     of Arts and Letters;
       Whereas Eudora Welty was the first living writer to be 
     included in the prestigious Library of America series that 
     features American literary giants such as Mark Twain, Walt 
     Whitman, Henry James, Willa Cather, Edith Wharton, Edgar 
     Allen Poe, and William Faulkner;
       Whereas 2 of Eudora Welty's books, The Robber Bridegroom 
     and The Ponder Heart, were adapted for the stage in New York;
       Whereas the place in which Eudora Welty lived, Jackson, 
     Mississippi, was central to her work as a writer;
       Whereas Jackson, Mississippi was, in Eudora Welty's words, 
     ``like a fire that never goes out'';
       Whereas for Eudora Welty, place was ``the stuff of fiction, 
     as close to our living lives as the earth we can pick up and 
     rub between our fingers, something we can feel and smell. . . 
     We know what the place has made of these people through 
     generations. We have a sense of continuity and that, I think, 
     comes from place.'';
       Whereas no writer was ever more beloved, or more adored by 
     her readers who avidly followed her life and work;
       Whereas Eudora Welty deeply loved family stories and 
     recalled how ``Long before I wrote stories, I listened for 
     stories. . . when their elders sit and begin, children are 
     just waiting and hoping for one to come out, like a mouse 
     from a hole.'';
       Whereas Eudora Welty's work focused on family life, 
     including weddings, reunions, and funerals;
       Whereas Eudora Welty's career began with the study of 
     region and place when she worked as a writer and photographer 
     for the Works Progress Administration, work that later 
     inspired her fiction and literary essays;
       Whereas these writings help each of us better understand 
     the humanities and their ties to region and place;
       Whereas Eudora Welty's work inspired the National Endowment 
     for the Humanities to launch its Regional Humanities 
     Initiative through 20 planning grants that have been awarded 
     to institutions in the States of Arizona, California, 
     Illinois, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, 
     Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Dakota, Ohio, 
     Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, 
     Virginia, and Wisconsin;
       Whereas like the gentle rain that fell across Mississippi 
     on the day of Eudora Welty's funeral, the Regional Humanities 
     Initiative nourishes the soil of American culture and its 
     roots in our regions;
       Whereas the Regional Humanities Initiative honors the 
     places from which we each come and preserves our history and 
     culture for future generations; and
       Whereas Eudora Welty believed deeply in the noble work of 
     the Regional Humanities Initiative and her name will inspire 
     future generations to understand and celebrate the places 
     that shape our Nation: Now, therefore, be it
       Resolved, That it is the sense of the Senate that the 
     Regional Humanities Initiative be named for Eudora Welty.

  Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, today I am introducing a Sense of the 
Senate Resolution honoring the memory of Eudora Welty, the famed 
Mississippi author who died last week. Senator Lott has joined me in 
sponsoring this resolution renaming the Regional Humanities Initiative 
at the National Endowment for the Humanities, NEH, the Eudora Welty 
Regional Humanities Initiative.
  One of the great themes of Miss Welty's writings is a sense of place. 
It is fitting then that the Regional Humanities Initiative that honors 
the places from which we come and will preserve our history and culture 
for future generations be named for her. In fact, a quote from Miss 
Welty's work is used in the NEH guidelines for this initiative and I 
would like to share those words with you: ``It is by knowing where you 
stand that you grow able to judge where you are. Place absorbs our 
earliest notice and attention. It

[[Page S8976]]

bestows upon us our original awareness: and our critical powers spring 
up from the study of it and the growth experiences inside it. . . .
  One place comprehended can make us understand other places better. 
Sense of place gives us equilibrium; extended, it is sense of direction 
too.''

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