[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 120 (Wednesday, September 29, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9956-S9958]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
SUBMITTED RESOLUTIONS
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SENATE RESOLUTION 441--EXPRESSING THE SENSE OF THE SENATE THAT OCTOBER
17, 1984, THE DATE OF THE RESTORATION BY THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT OF
FEDERAL RECOGNITION TO THE CONFEDERATED TRIBES OF COOS, LOWER UMPQUA,
AND SIUSLAW INDIANS, SHOULD BE MEMORIALIZED
Mr. SMITH (for himself and Mr. Wyden) submitted the following
resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Indian Affairs:
S. Res. 441
Whereas the Coos, Lower Umpqua, and Siuslaw Restoration Act
(25 U.S.C. 714 et seq.), which was signed by the President on
October 17, 1984, restored Federal recognition to the
Confederated Tribes of Coos, Lower Umpqua, and Siuslaw
Indians;
Whereas the Confederated Tribes of Coos, Lower Umpqua, and
Siuslaw Indians historically inhabited land now in the State
of Oregon, from Fivemile Point in the south to Tenmile Creek
in the north, west to the Pacific Ocean, then east to the
crest of the Coast Range, encompassing the watersheds of the
Coos River, the Umpqua River to Weatherly Creek, the Siuslaw
River, the coastal tributaries between Tenmile Creek and
Fivemile Point, and portions of the Coquille watershed;
Whereas in addition to restoring Federal recognition, that
Act and other Federal Indian statutes have provided the means
for the Confederated Tribes to achieve the goals of cultural
restoration, economic self-sufficiency, and the attainment of
a standard of living equivalent to that enjoyed by other
citizens of the United States;
Whereas by enacting the Coos, Lower Umpqua, and Siuslaw
Restoration Act (25 U.S.C. 714 et seq.), the Federal
Government--
(1) declared that the Confederated Tribes of Coos, Lower
Umpqua, and Siuslaw Indians were eligible for all Federal
services and benefits provided to federally recognized
tribes;
(2) provided the means to establish a tribal reservation;
and
(3) granted the Confederated Tribes of Coos, Lower Umpqua,
and Siuslaw Indians self-government for the betterment of
tribal members, including the ability to set tribal rolls;
Whereas the Confederated Tribes of Coos, Lower Umpqua, and
Siuslaw Indians have embraced Federal recognition and self-
sufficiency statutes and are actively working to better the
lives of tribal members; and
Whereas economic self-sufficiency, which was the goal of
restoring Federal recognition for the Confederated Tribes of
Coos, Lower Umpqua, and Siuslaw Indians, is being realized
through many projects: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That it is the sense of the Senate that October
17, 1984, should be memorialized as the date on which the
Federal Government restored Federal recognition to the
Confederated Tribes of Coos, Lower Umpqua, and Siuslaw
Indians.
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SENATE RESOLUTION 442--APOLOGIZING TO THE VICTIMS OF LYNCHING AND THEIR
DESCENDANTS FOR THE SENATE'S FAILURE TO ENACT ANTI-LYNCHING LEGISLATION
Ms. LANDRIEU (for herself and Mr. Allen) submitted the following
resolution; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary:
S. Res. 442
Whereas the crime of lynching succeeded slavery as the
ultimate expression of racism in the United States following
Reconstruction;
Whereas lynching was a common practice in the United States
until the middle of the 20th century;
Whereas lynching was a crime that occurred throughout the
Nation, with documented incidents in all but 4 States;
Whereas at least 4,749 people, predominantly African-
Americans, were reported lynched in the United States between
1881 and 1964;
Whereas 99 percent of all lynch mob perpetrators escaped
any form of punishment from State or local officials;
Whereas lynching prompted African-Americans to form the
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
(NAACP) and prompted members of B'nai B'rith to found the
Anti-Defamation League;
Whereas nearly 200 anti-lynching bills were introduced in
Congress during the first half of the 20th century;
Whereas between 1890 and 1952, 7 Presidents petitioned
Congress to end lynching;
Whereas between 1920 and 1940, the House of Representatives
passed 3 strong anti-lynching measures;
Whereas protection against lynching was the minimum and
most basic of Federal responsibilities, yet the Senate failed
to enact anti-lynching legislation despite repeated requests
by civil rights groups, Presidents, and the House of
Representatives;
Whereas until the recent publication of ``Without
Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America'', the victims of
lynching have never been properly acknowledged;
Whereas only by coming to terms with its history can the
United States effectively champion human rights abroad; and
Whereas an apology offered in the spirit of true repentance
moves the Nation toward reconciliation and may become central
to a new understanding upon which improved racial relations
can be forged: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That the Senate--
(1) apologizes to the victims and survivors of lynching for
its failure to enact anti-lynching legislation;
(2) expresses its deepest sympathies and most solemn
regrets to the descendants of victims of lynching whose
ancestors were deprived of life, human dignity, and the
constitutional protections accorded all other citizens of the
United States; and
(3) remembers the history of lynching, to ensure that these
personal tragedies will be neither forgotten nor repeated.
Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, it has been said that ``ignorance,
allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.''
Sadly, this great body, in which I am so proud to serve, once allied
its power with ignorance. In so doing, it condoned unspeakable
injustice that diminished the role of the Senate, and heaped untold
suffering on Americans sorely in need of our protection. I am referring
to the Senate's role in the decades long campaign to end lynching in
this country. On three separate occasions, our colleagues in the House
of Representatives passed anti-lynching legislation with overwhelming
majorities. On all three of those occasions members of this Chamber
blocked, or filibustered the consideration of that legislation.
Between 1882, when records first began to be collected, and 1968 four
thousand, seven hundred and forty-two Americans lost their lives to
lynch mobs. The experts believe that undocumented cases might double
that figure. The vast majority of those killed--three thousand, four
hundred and forty-five Americans--were African American. Sadly, a
disproportionate number of those deaths occurred within my home region
of the South, but 46 of the 50 States experienced these atrocities.
Lynching was truly a national problem deserving the attention of the
national legislative bodies.
Frederick Douglas seems to have captured the real reason for this
dark period of our national history. These acts of terrorism were not
so much an admission of African Americans' weakness, but of their
perseverance--and indomitable spirit. Douglas wrote: It is proof that
the Negro is not standing still. He is not dead, but alive and active.
He is not drifting with the current, but manfully resisting it . . . A
ship rotting at anchor meets with no resistance, but when she sails on
the sea, she has to buffet opposing billows. The enemies of the Negro
see that he is making progress and they naturally wish to stop him and
keep him in just what they consider his proper place.
It was, in short, the ability of African Americans to overcome Jim
Crow laws, to overcome share-cropping, to overcome second-class
citizenship that provoked such savagery. Its an old story that repeats
itself throughout human history. Whether it was the Israelites in
Egypt, the colonial empires in Africa or America's own history of
Apartheid, rulers that assume superiority inevitably prove themselves
models of mankind's basest instincts.
It should also be noted that this was not only an outrage committed
against African Americans. The effort to dehumanize people on the basis
of race or ethnicity did not limit itself to black Americans. In fact,
the single largest incident of lynching occurred in my home state, in
my home town of New Orleans. Yet, the victims were not black. They were
Italians. On March 14, 1891, 11 Italian immigrants were lynched in the
City of New Orleans. These immigrants too were thought to
[[Page S9957]]
be less than human, and were simply rounded up as a group of the
``usual suspects'' following the murder of Police Superintendent David
Hennessy. Already edgy from a media prompted mafia scare, a mob
surrounded the prison and eventually battered down the doors. An armed
group of twenty five men overtook the guards and summarily riddled the
bodies of the 11 Italian prisoners with bullets. Their bodies were hung
on lampposts outside the prison. Eyewitnesses described the cheering of
the crowd as deafening.
Of course, the attacks on that day are an example of mob justice and
its irrational prejudices. However, in nearly 25 percent of all
lynchings the motivations of the attackers came down to a bald attempt
to maintain a caste system in this country. The NAACP cataloged the
reported motivations for these forms of attack. They included: using
disrespectful, insulting, slanderous, boastful, threatening or
incendiary language; insubordination, impertinence, or improper
demeanor, a sarcastic grin, laughing at the wrong place, a prolonged
silence; refusing to take off one's hat to a white person or to give
the right-of-way when encountering a white on the sidewalk; resisting
assault by whites; being troublesome generally; disorderly conduct,
petty theft or drunkenness; writing an improper letter to a white
person; paying undue or improper attention to a white female; accusing
a white man of writing love letters to a black woman; or living or
keeping company with a white woman; turning or refusing to turn state's
evidence; testifying or bringing suit against a white person; being
related to a person accused of a crime and already lynched; political
activities; union organizing; conjuring; discussing a lynching;
gambling; operating a house of ill fame; a personal debt; refusing to
accept an employment offer; vagrancy; refusing to give up one's farm;
conspicuously displaying one's wealth or property; and trying to act
like a white man.
In many instances, lynchings were little more than a way to remove an
economic competitor and confiscate his property. This was true in a
number of cases in Mississippi involving successful African American
landowners, and in one notorious Hawaiian case involving a Japanese
immigrant competing with established white businessmen.
Many of my colleagues might wonder why now? After all, some of these
incidents are over a century old. There are two reasons. First, this
aspect of American history is not well known or understood. As
reconstruction concluded in the South, a very ugly struggle to reassert
the social structure that preceded the Civil War took place. A great
deal of it occurred with the tacit consent of the Federal Government,
and the most part, the media either shared in the common prejudice, or
simply ignored what was occurring.
Fortunately, we have the publication of the book ``Without
Sanctuary'' by James Allen, Hilton Als, Congressman John Lewis, and
Leon F. Litwak to serve as a focal point for our attention to this
neglected history. This is a difficult book to examine. It serves as a
catalog of inhuman crime perpetrated by very ordinary citizens. Looking
at anything so tragic as the victims of these crimes would be
disturbing, but that is not what will leave a lasting impression. It is
the festive attitude, the smiles and smirks on the crowd gathered
around the victim. They clearly take a perverse pride in this act.
Hannah Arendt, the famous political philosopher, subtitled her book on
Adolph Eichman's war crimes trials ``A Report on the Banality of
Evil.'' When you look at the expressions on the faces of the murderers
in these photos, that is all you can think about. These are not crazed
killers, these are rational people going about their everyday lives,
and committing unspeakable acts in the process.
Photos like these serve to remind us that a healthy society is not
something that is built up over time, and then like a great monument,
exists for centuries. Rather, a healthy society is a thin levee that
must be constantly improved and maintained to hold back the worst
instincts of mankind. I think the horrible pictures that came from Abu
Gharib prison served as a reminder of this lesson. This book is even
greater testimony that atrocities are not events that only occur in far
off places. They can and have occurred here in the United States.
The only way to maintain a healthy society is to acknowledge and
discuss our mistakes. No one would defend the Senate's filibuster of
anti-lynching legislation today. I would like to think that any Senator
who did so would quickly be looking for another line of work. However,
despite the change of attitude we have taken no action to remedy our
wrong. That is the purpose of this resolution today. I would like to
extend my deep thanks to my courageous colleague, the Junior Senator
from Virginia. He seemed to instantly understand the significance of
this effort, and I believed it was vitally important to proceed with
this resolution in a bipartisan manner. His input and drive have made
this effort much more successful than it otherwise would have been.
It is our intention to submit this legislation today, and use the
recess period to confer with our colleagues about it. When we reconvene
next year, we will resubmit this resolution, and at that time, we hope
to have the co-sponsorship of every member of this body. Then, we will
endeavor to enact the resolution to commemorate Black History month.
I said ignorance allied with power is justice's most ferocious enemy.
Yet imagine what truth allied with power can bring. For over 50 years,
African American achievement was seen as a threat to the majority of
people in this nation. It is time to close the book on that tragic
period and begin to celebrate the achievements of black Americans as
accomplishments that have bettered us all. I believe that this
resolution of apology will be an important symbolic step in this
process of healing and growth.
Mr. ALLEN. Mr. President, I rise today to speak in support of an
anti-lynching resolution that Ms. Landrieu and I are submitting. Like
all of my colleagues, I am proud to be a member of this Chamber, not
for its grandeur, but because of the grand ideas it represents. It is
here, on these same small desks where big ideas have been debated and
argued through the course of our history for the greater good of our
Nation. It is here in this Chamber, on this floor, where our Democracy
reaches consensus from what our Founding Fathers called, the ``Will of
the People.''
In the history of this Chamber, there have been many great minds and
defenders of Freedom. One of those whose words still reverberate here
today is Daniel Webster. Standing in the old Senate Chamber, Webster
told his colleagues in 1834 that a ``representative of the people is a
sentinel on the watch tower of liberty.''
I know that Webster was right. I believe throughout our history, the
United States Senate has been a watchtower on Liberty. It has been
venerated as the World's greatest deliberative body. The formidable
British Member of Parliament, William Gladstone called the American
Senate, ``that remarkable body, the most remarkable of all the
inventions of modern politics.''
But unfortunately, this august body has a dark stain on its history.
A stain that was borne of hatred, racism, and the blood of mostly
African Americans who died from a noose, from flogging, from a torch,
from the evil heart of men.
I rise today to offer a formal and heartfelt apology to all the
victims of lynchings in our history--black, white, Jewish, Indian,
Hispanic and Asian and the failure of the U.S. Senate to take action
when action was most deserved.
The term ``lynching'' has its roots in my own beloved Commonwealth.
Charles Lynch, a Virginia planter during the Revolutionary War meted
out his own form of justice without a court. In Bedford County, Lynch
persecuted Tories and Tory sympathizers without trial.
Soon, others who desired to thwart the rule of law and to trample on
the rights of the accused used ``lynchings'' against the innocent or
lightly accused.
This body stood by as these vile killings captivated front-page
headlines, drew crowds with morbid curiosity and left thousands of
mostly African Americans hanging from trees or bleeding to death from
the lashings of whips. This body failed to act and in not acting,
failed to protect the Liberty of which Webster spoke.
[[Page S9958]]
According to the archives of Tuskegee Institute, 4,749 Americans died
by lynching starting in 1882. Two-thirds of these lynchings were
perpetrated against black men, women, and children. Many were not lone
acts by a few white men, but angry mobs whipped into frenzies by skewed
mentalities of right and wrong.
One of those who suffered this awful fate was an African American
named Zachariah Walker of Coatesville, VA. In 1911, Walker was dragged
from a hospital bed where he was recovering from a gunshot wound.
Accused of killing a white man--which he claimed was in self-defense--
Walker was burned alive at the stake without a trial.
Such horrendous acts were not a regional phenomenon. Yes, it is true
that most lynchings took place in Southern States. But, Illinois, Ohio,
Michigan and even this city of Washington, D.C. experienced mob
violence, making lynching not just a regional problem, but a national
crime.
Yet, despite the national scope of these acts, the U.S. Senate failed
to pass one of the estimated 200 anti-lynching bills introduced in
Congress in the first half of the Twentieth Century. Three strong
pieces of legislation were passed by the other body, but faced
filibusters and failures to reach cloture on this Senate floor.
In the winter of 1937-38, one grisly lynching captivated this body's
attention. The crime had happened in Mississippi the previous April.
Two African Americans were taken from a jail. They were whipped and
torched. Senator Champ Clark of Missouri posted photographs of the
brutality back here in the cloakroom. For six weeks, this body debated.
For six weeks! In the end, those in favor of an anti-lynching bill
failed to enact cloture over the filibustering of others.
Historians will no doubt disagree as to a single reason that U.S.
Senators blocked legislation to make lynching a federal crime. My
desire here is not to get into motivations.
Regardless of their reasoning, our reason tells us that it was wrong
and it is time to right it.
Thankfully, justice in our Nation has moved forward and left such
despicable acts to history. But, this story can never be complete
without an acknowledgement from this body that it failed to protect
individual freedoms and rights.
It ignored the protection our Founding Fathers extended to those
accused of crimes and the bedrock foundation of our system of justice
that everyone is innocent until proven guilty. And, it turned its back
on the most helpless in our society at a time when the weak needed
protection.
I stand here today as a proud Senator from a Southern State. I look
around this chamber and know of its abundance of honor and integrity
throughout its history. Yet, we have not been perfect, especially on
this issue. We failed our American ideals and we failed our citizens.
As Ephesians teaches us, ``all things that are reproved are made
manifest by the light.''
My fellow Senators, this apology is too long in coming. I
respectfully urge all of us to reprove this omission of history as a
strong step never to be repeated in our future.
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SENATE RESOLUTION 443--TO AUTHORIZE TESTIMONY, DOCUMENT PRODUCTION, AND
LEGAL REPRESENTATION IN UNITED STATES V. ROBERTO MARTIN
Mr. FRIST (for himself and Mr. Daschle) submitted the following
resolution; which was considered and agreed to:
S. Res. 443
Whereas, in the case of United States v. Roberto Martin,
Crim. No. 04-CR-20075, pending in Federal District Court in
the Southern District of Florida, testimony and documents
have been requested from an employee in the office of Senator
Bob Graham;
Whereas, pursuant to sections 703(a) and 704(a)(2) of the
Ethics in Government Act of 1978, 2 U.S.C. Sec. Sec. 288b(a)
and 288c(a)(2), the Senate may direct its counsel to
represent employees of the Senate with respect to any
subpoena, order, or request for testimony relating to their
official responsibilities;
Whereas, by the privileges of the Senate of the United
States and Rule XI of the Standing Rules of the Senate, no
evidence under the control or in the possession of the Senate
may, by the judicial or administrative process, be taken from
such control or possession but by permission of the Senate;
Whereas, when it appears that evidence under the control or
in the possession of the Senate may promote the
administration of justice, the Senate will take such action
as will promote the ends of justice consistent with the
privileges of the Senate: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved that employees of Senator Graham's office from
whom testimony or the production of documents may be required
are authorized to testify and produce documents in the case
of United States v. Roberto Martin, except concerning matters
for which a privilege should be asserted.
Sec. 2. The Senate Legal Counsel is authorized to represent
Senator Graham's staff in the action referenced in section
one of this resolution.
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SENATE RESOLUTION 444--CONGRATULATING AND COMMENDING THE VETERANS OF
FOREIGN WARS OF THE UNITED STATES AND ITS NATIONAL COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF,
JOHN FURGESS OF TENNESSEE
Mr. FRIST (for himself, Mr. Daschle, Mr. Specter, Mr. Alexander, and
Mr. Reid) submitted the following resolution; which was considered and
agreed to:
S. Res. 444
Whereas the organization now known as the Veterans of
Foreign Wars of the United States (``VFW'') was founded in
Columbus, Ohio, on September 29, 1899;
Whereas the VFW represents approximately 2,000,000 veterans
of the Armed Forces who served overseas in World War I, World
War II, Korea, Vietnam, the Persian Gulf War, Bosnia, Iraq,
and Afghanistan; and
Whereas the VFW has, for the past 105 years, provided
voluntary and unselfish service to the Armed Forces and to
veterans, communities, States, and the United States, and has
worked toward the betterment of veterans in general and
society as a whole: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That the Senate--
(1) recognizes the historic significance of the 105th
anniversary of the founding of the Veterans of Foreign Wars
of the United States (``VFW'');
(2) congratulates the VFW on achieving that milestone;
(3) commends the approximately 2,000,000 veterans who
belong to the VFW and thanks them for their service to their
fellow veterans and the United States; and
(4) recognizes the VFW's national Commander-in-Chief, John
Furgess, for his service and dedication to the veterans of
the United States.
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