[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 78 (Thursday, June 13, 2002)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5538-S5540]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. HOLLINGS:
  S. 2622. A bill to authorize the President to posthumously award a 
gold medal on behalf of Congress to Joseph A. De Laine in recognition 
of his contributions to the Nation; to the Committee on Banking, 
Housing, and Urban Affairs.
  Mr. HOLLINGS. Madam President, I rise today to introduce legislation 
to present Reverend Joseph A. De Laine the Congressional Gold Medal in 
honor of his heroic sacrifices to desegregate our public schools. His 
crusade to break down barriers in education forever scarred his own 
life, but led to the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case in 1954.
  Eight years before Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of the bus, 
Rev. De Laine, a minister and principal, organized African-American 
parents to petition the Summerton, SC, school board for a bus and 
gasoline so their children would not have to walk 10 miles to attend a 
segregated school. A year later, in Briggs v. Elliott, the parents sued 
to end segregation. It was a case that as a young lawyer I watched 
Thurgood Marshall argue before the Supreme Court as one of the five 
cases collectively known as Brown v. Board of Education. For this 
Senator, their arguments helped to shape my view on racial matters.
  For his efforts, Rev. De Laine was subjected to a reign of domestic 
terrorism. He lost his job. He watched his church and home burn. He was 
charged with assault and battery with intent to kill after shots were 
fired at his home and he fired back to mark the car. He had to leave 
South Carolina forever; relocate to New York, where he started an AME 
Church, and he eventually retired in North Carolina. Not until the year 
2000, 26 years after his death and 45 years after the incident in his 
home was Rev. De Laine cleared of all charges.
  Last month, I spoke to the 100 descendants of Briggs v. Elliott, and 
I ask unanimous consent that my remarks be printed in the Record, which 
show the bravery of Rev. De Laine during a troubled time in our 
Nation's past, and which point to the immeasurable benefits he has 
given our Nation.
  There being no objection, the remarks were ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

   Briggs v. Elliott Descendants Re-union Banquet, Summerton, South 
                         Carolina, May 11, 2002

       I want to give you an insight into exactly what happened to 
     your parents 50 years ago in Summerton, SC, that led to the 
     desegregation of our Nation's schools by the Supreme Court of 
     the United States.
       I speak with some trepidation, because right now I can see 
     Harry Briggs' son walking down that dirt road all the way 
     here to Scotts Branch School, and that school bus passing, 
     all for the white children. Yet all your families were asking 
     for was a bus. But they were told: ``you don't pay any taxes, 
     so how can you ask for a bus?'' What they didn't say is you 
     didn't have a job, whereby you could make a living and be 
     able to pay the taxes. They didn't say that.
       I think of the threats, the burnings, the shooting up of 
     Reverend John De Laine's home. I think about how they turned 
     him into a fugitive. He had to leave his home in South 
     Carolina, never to return. Harry Briggs had to leave his home 
     and go to Florida to earn a living. It's not for me to tell 
     the descendants of the Briggs v. Elliott case how they have 
     suffered.
       I didn't try this case, don't misunderstand me. My 
     beginnings with Briggs v. Elliott started in 1948 when I was 
     elected to the House of Representatives in Columbia.
       The previous year James Hinton, the head of the NAACP in 
     the State gave a speech in Columbia. He talked about the need 
     to get separate but equal facilities. He got Rev. De Laine 
     from Summerton in the audience all fired up. Rev. De Laine, 
     who was the principal here, put together a petition signed by 
     20 parents, of 46 children, the Summerton 66.
       I'll never forget the day after I was sworn into the 
     Legislature the superintendent of schools in Charleston 
     County took me across the Cooper River Bridge, down the 
     Mathis Ferry Road, to the Freedom School, the black school. 
     He said I want to show you what we really do, he used the 
     word at that time, ``for a Negro education.''
       This was a cold November Day, and we went into a big one-
     room building. That's all they had, one room, with a pot 
     belly stove in the middle. They had a class in this corner, a 
     class in that back corner, a class up front in this corner, 
     and a class here. Of course, they didn't have any desks, and 
     very few books, and one teacher teaching the four classes.
       When I went to Columbia I was with a bunch of rebels. I 
     introduced an anti-lynching bill. I had never heard of 
     lynchings down in Charleston, but then they had one. As we 
     debated the bill, a fellow who was the grand dragon of the 
     Klan got up with all these Klansmen in the Gallery, and he 
     mumbled and raised cane. Speaker Blott got some order. But 
     several House members walked out. They said they wouldn't be 
     seated in the Legislature with a fellow like that. We passed 
     the anti-lynching bill.
       I'm trying to give you this background, so you'll 
     understand the significance of what your parents did. We had 
     just had the case, whereby blacks could participate in the 
     Democratic primary. And we had just given women the right to 
     vote.
       And in 1949 and 1950, I struggled because there was no 
     money in the state for separate but equal schools, or 
     anything else. I said we ought to put in a 3 percent sales 
     tax to pay for things. Governor Thurmond opposed it, and the 
     senators particularly opposed it. But I made the motion for a 
     one-cent tax on cigarettes; a one-cent tax on gasoline; and a 
     one-cent tax on beer. Beer, cigarettes, and gasoline.
       We formed a House Committee with six of us to work on it. 
     We worked all summer. It's a long story, but let me cut it 
     and say by December we had it all written. I knew the 
     incoming governor, Governor Byrnes. I felt it would be good 
     to ask him to see if he could help me with this measure.
       The second week in January, before he was sworn in, he 
     called me and said: ``You've got to come to Columbia, I'm 
     going to include this in my Inaugural address.'' Over 
     time, I made 79 talks on the proposal, until we finally 
     passed the sales tax, which provided some money for 
     separate but equal schools.
       When the Briggs v. Elliott case came up, before Judge 
     Waring in Charleston, he questioned separate but equal. Then 
     in December 1952, the case went to the Supreme Court. 
     Governor Byrnes had served on the State Supreme Court, and he 
     wanted to make sure we won the case. In my mind, he was 
     absolutely sure that under Chief Justice Vinson the State 
     would win it.
       But to make sure, he set aside Mr. Bob McC. Figg, who had 
     done all the work, and selected John W. Davis, as the 
     attorney for South Carolina against Thurgood Marshall, who 
     was representing Briggs and the NAACP. Mr. Davis had been the 
     Solicitor General of the United States. He had been the 
     Democratic nominee for president in 1924. He was considered 
     the greatest constitutional mind in the country.
       The second thing the Governor did was to call me up and 
     say: ``I'm appointing you to go to Washington, because you 
     know intimately this law here that built the schools. You 
     have to go to Washington in case any questions of fact come 
     up.''
       So we took a train to Washington. We came in at 6 o'clock 
     that morning at Union Station, and we sat down for breakfast. 
     I'll never forget it, because Thurgood Marshall walked in. He 
     and Bob McC. Figg had become real close friends. So he sat 
     down and was eating breakfast with us, and we began swapping 
     stories.
       Mr. Marshall said ``Bob, you know that black family that 
     moved into that white neighborhood in Cicero, IL. They have 
     so much trouble. There are riots, and everything else going 
     on.'' And he said: ``Don't tell anybody, but I got hold of 
     Governor Adlai Stevenson.'' Stevenson was the governor of 
     Illinois at the time. And he said: ``I sent that family back 
     to Mississippi for safe keeping.'' And Thurgood added, ``for 
     God's sake, don't tell anybody that or it will ruin me.'' I 
     said: ``for God's sake, don't tell anybody I'm eating 
     breakfast with you, or I will never get elected again.''
       I tell you that story so you can get a feel for 1952, for 
     what it was like 50 years ago.
       We had wanted Briggs to be the lead case before the Supreme 
     Court. It was one of five cases that they would hear 
     collectively. But soon after our breakfast, we found out that 
     Roy Wilkens from the NAACP had gotten together with the 
     Solicitor General and moved the Kansas case in front of the 
     South Carolina case. Some reports said the reason was because 
     they wanted a northern case. That was not it. There was 
     another case from the State of Delaware, which was just as 
     north as the State of Kansas.
       Kansas was selected because up until the sixth grade, yes, 
     it was segregated. But thereafter it was a local option, and 
     the schools were mostly integrated.
       Before the court John W. Davis obviously made a very 
     impassioned, constitutional argument. But Thurgood Marshall 
     made the real argument, there wasn't any question about it. 
     He had been with this case. He had the feel, and everything 
     else of that kind.
       I can still hear and see Justice Frankfurter on the Court 
     leaning over and saying, ``Mr. Marshall, Mr. Marshall, you've 
     won your case, you've won your case. What happens next''? And 
     Thurgood Marshall said, well, if he prevails, then the state 
     imposed policy of separation by race would be removed. The 
     little children can go to the school of their choice. They 
     play together before they go to school. They come back and 
     play together after school. Now they can be together at 
     school. The State imposed policy of separation by race in 
     South Carolina would be gone.
       Another lawyer arguing the case was George E. C. Hayes, and 
     when I heard him that was my epiphany. Mr. Hayes got everyone 
     because he used a jury argument before

[[Page S5540]]

     the Supreme Court. He said: as black soldiers we went to the 
     war to fight on the front lines in Europe, and when we come 
     home we have to sit on the back of the bus.
       I had been with the 9th Anti-Artillery Aircraft unit in 
     Tunisia in Africa for a month. And then I was in Italy and 
     Germany and crossed over to what is now Kosovo. So I served. 
     I knew exactly what he was talking about. And I said this is 
     wrong.
       The next year Chief Justice Vinson died. It was reported at 
     that time that Justice Frankfurter said for the first time 
     that he believed there was a God in Heaven when Vison passed 
     away. They appointed Mr. Earl Warren as Chief Justice, who 
     dragged everybody back to the Court to re-argue the case in 
     December of 1953. He didn't want to hear about separate but 
     equal. He wanted the case re-argued on the constitutionality 
     of segregation itself.
       Then on May 17, 1953 the decision came down, it was 
     unanimous, segregation was over in this country. So the 
     lawyers immediately got together to discuss how to implement 
     the decision. Since the decision said to integrate schools 
     with all deliberate speed, there was arguments back and forth 
     on how we could comply with this order with all deliberate 
     speed and not start chaos all over the land.
       Some school authority down in Charleston came up with the 
     idea that with all deliberate speed meant we would integrate 
     the first grade the first year; we would integrate the first 
     and second grades the second year; the third year would be 
     the first, second, and third grades. Over a 12-year period, 
     we would then have the 12 grades integrated. When the head of 
     the NAACP in New York heard that he said: ``Noooo Way. We are 
     not going to be given our constitutional rights on the 
     installment plan.'' And that ended that. But nothing was done 
     for about 10 years, until Martin Luther King came along.
       When I became Governor, I started working on other areas 
     that needed to be integrated, beginning with law enforcement. 
     I'll never forget all the white sheriffs who were against all 
     the blacks. We only had 34 black sheriffs. We have about 500 
     today.
       And we literally broke up and locked up the Ku Klux Klan. I 
     remember on the day I was sworn in as Governor, waiting for 
     me was a green and gold embossed envelope, with a lifetime 
     membership into the Ku Klux Klan. I never heard of such a 
     thing. I asked the head of law enforcement, do we have the Ku 
     Klux Klan in South Carolina? He said, ``Ohhh yes. We have 
     1,727 members.'' I asked, you have an actual count? And he 
     said: ``Ohhh yes, we keep a count of them.'' He said he could 
     get rid of them, but no Governor had helped him in the past. 
     I said, I'll help you. What do we do? He said: ``I need a 
     little money.''
       So we infiltrated the Klan, and the members began to know, 
     or their bosses at businesses knew because they would say to 
     these people: ``You know on Friday night, your man, so and 
     so, has been going to these rallies.'' The next thing you 
     know, they quit going to the rallies. So by the time we 
     integrated Clemson with Harvey Gantt, it went very, very 
     peacefully. And there were less than 300 Klansmen.
       Then, of course, as Senator I took my hunger trips. This is 
     the effect those arguments before the court had on me. I took 
     those trips with the NAACP to 16 different counties. As a 
     result, we embellished the food stamp program, we instituted 
     the women infants and children's feeding program, and the 
     school lunch program. The attendance in schools went way up 
     when we started that.
       As your Senator I had the privilege of employing Ralph 
     Everett. He was the first black staff director of any 
     committee in the United States Senate.
       We have both Andy Chishom and Israel Brooks as the first 
     black Marshalls of South Carolina. Matthew Perry, the first 
     black district judge of a Federal court ever appointed, I 
     appointed. The first black woman judge to the Federal 
     district court, Margaret Seymour, I appointed her. So we have 
     made a lot of progress along that line.
       But to give you a feel for how things have changed, I 
     remember speaking at the C.A. Johnson High School in 
     Columbia, the largest black high school in the entire state, 
     the day after Martin Luther King was assassinated.
       At the event, there was a mid-shipman, a senior at the 
     Naval Academy, who stood up and made one of the finest talks 
     I ever heard. I turned to the principal, because it was his 
     son, and I asked: who appointed your son to the Naval 
     Academy? He didn't answer. We walked down the row, and I can 
     see me now, asking him again. He still didn't answer. When I 
     got to my car, I said evidently you don't understand my 
     accent from Charleston. Who appointed your son to the U.S. 
     Naval Academy? He said, ``Senator, I didn't want to have to 
     answer that question. We couldn't get a member of the South 
     Carolina delegation to appoint him. Hubert Humphrey appointed 
     him.''
       What goes around, comes around. Today, I have more minority 
     appointments to West Point, Annapolis, and the Air Force 
     Academies than anybody. Recently I had Chuck Bolden, who is a 
     major general in the marine corps and a former astronaut, 
     ready to return to NASA as the number two person there. But 
     the Pentagon raised the question about taking such a talent 
     during a time of war and moving him to the civilian space 
     program. So we said the heck with it, he's too needed in the 
     military.
       That is the effect Briggs v. Elliott had on this public 
     servant. There isn't any question that without the courage of 
     your parents, our society would be a lot worse off today.
       I was there a few years back when the Congress of the 
     United gave the Congressional Gold Medal to Rosa Parks. She 
     deserved it, and we wouldn't take anything from her for not 
     moving her seat. But in the 1950s the worst they could have 
     done to her was to pull her off the bus. These descendants 
     lost their homes. They lost their livelihoods. They almost 
     lost their lives. As far as continuing their life in the 
     State of South Carolina, they could not do it.
       Without their courage, without their stamina, without their 
     example in starting the Briggs v. Elliott case, we never 
     would have had a civil rights act. We never would have had a 
     voting rights act. We never would have had all the progress 
     we've made over the many, many years.
       So I wanted particularly to come back and to publicly thank 
     each of you descendants. And I want to announce that I am 
     putting forward a bill that would honor posthumously Rev. De 
     Laine with a Congressional Gold Medal.
       I need 66 co-sponsors in the Senate. We have to have 
     similar support on the House side. But Cong. Clyburn, he can 
     get way more votes than I can. I don't think he'll have any 
     trouble. We'll try to work it out so that in '04, the 50th 
     anniversary of when the decision came down, we'll be able to 
     make that presentation.
       I just want to end by saying because of the courage of your 
     parents, we made far more progress in the United States of 
     America. Our country is a far stronger country. We are more 
     than ever the land of the free and the home of the brave 
     because of Briggs v. Elliott. And I thank you all very, very 
     much.
                                 ______