[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 32 (Thursday, February 27, 2003)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E313]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                REMEMBERING REV. EDWARD VICTOR HILL SR.

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                          HON. DIANE E. WATSON

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                      Thursday, February 27, 2003

  Mr. WATSON. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to express my sadness in the 
passing of a great community and civic leader, Dr. Edward Victor Hill 
Sr.
  He was known throughout the United States and the world for his 
compassionate sermons and teaching. He will be dearly missed.
  For the past 42 years, Rev. E.V. Hill has been the pastor of the 
Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles. He grew up in 
poverty in a Texas log cabin. By the age of 21 he became pastor of the 
Mount Corinth Missionary Baptist Church in Houston, where he was one of 
seven black pastors who joined Dr. Martin Luther King in forming the 
Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Rev. Hill soon became a 
confidant of Dr. King and a central leader to the civil rights 
struggle.
  Rev. Hill came to Los Angles in 1961 to become the pastor of Mount 
Zion. By 1972, he was elected as the youngest president of the 
California State Baptist Convention. Under Rev. Hill's leadership, his 
congregation became a center of political and social activism in Los 
Angeles. He fought for government programs that would bring housing and 
economic development to his communities. He also started a number of 
church-based programs, among them the creation of senior citizen 
housing, a credit union, and a service for the hungry called the 
``Lord's Kitchen.''
  I send my heartfelt condolences to the Hill family. My thoughts and 
prayers are with them.

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