[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 79 (Wednesday, June 15, 2005)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1249-E1250]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




A CALL FOR MORE THAN A SENATORIAL APOLOGY FOR NOT PASSING ANTI-LYNCHING 
                                  LAWS

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. CHARLES B. RANGEL

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, June 15, 2005

  Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to respond to the Senate's 
apology for not passing anti-lynching legislation.
  The Senate adopted a Resolution this week apologizing for its refusal 
to pass anti-lynching bills. It acted on June 13, 2005 to apologize for 
decades of failure to enact a law that would have stopped the 
systematic torture and murder of thousands; decades during which the 
U.S. Congress knowingly perpetuated the practice of lynching. Seven 
presidents asked Congress to outlaw lynching, almost 200 anti-lynching 
bills were introduced and the House passed anti-lynching legislation 
three times, but southern filibusters killed all three bills.
  The Senate stood by as over 4,700 people, mostly African American, 
were reportedly lynched between 1882 and 1968. Victims of these 
horrific acts were subjected to public humiliation. Most were beaten 
and some were even burned alive amidst the cheering of racist mobs. 
Their bodies were often left hanging in their communities as a warning 
to other African Americans, emphasizing the purposeful use of violence 
and torture by the White majority in America as a tool of oppression of 
the Black minority.
  Although the Senate is being praised for admitting one of the many 
injustices that have shaped this country, there is still more work to 
be done. Only 80 of the 100 senators cosponsored the resolution and the 
senators that did co-sponsor the resolution were able to avoid putting 
themselves on record because the resolution passed by voice vote. There 
still appears to be reluctance, even today, on the part of many 
senators to publicly apologize for the complicity of the Senate in 
allowing the perpetration of systematic acts of terrorism against 
African Americans.
  Lynching has destroyed generations of African American families. 
Today, African American communities are still suffering at the hands of 
injustice. The increasing prison population, disparities in public 
schools and lack of access to healthcare services continue to disable 
African Americans. We must have the

[[Page E1250]]

apology become the beginning of a serious effort to examine the 
consequences of the oppression of African Americans symbolized by the 
practice of lynching, consequences which continue to afflict this 
community today.

  Let us address these problems now instead of apologizing for them 
later.
  The following New York Times article by Sheryl Gay Stolberg discusses 
the Senate action.

           Senate Issues Apology Over Failure on Lynching Law

       Anthony Crawford's granddaughter went to her grave without 
     speaking a word to her own children about his lynching, so 
     painful was the family history. On Monday, Mr. Crawford's 
     descendants came to the Capitol to tell it--and to accept a 
     formal apology from the Senate for its repeated failure, 
     despite the requests of seven presidents, to enact a federal 
     law to make lynching a crime.
       The formal apology, adopted by voice vote, was issued 
     decades after senators blocked antilynching bills by 
     filibuster. The resolution is the first time that members of 
     Congress, who have apologized to Japanese-Americans for their 
     internment in World War II and to Hawaiians for the overthrow 
     of their kingdom, have apologized to African-Americans for 
     any reason, proponents of the measure said.
       ``The Senate failed you and your ancestors and our 
     nation,'' Senator Mary L. Landrieu of Louisiana, chief 
     Democratic sponsor of the resolution, said at a luncheon 
     attended by 200 family members and descendants of victims. 
     They included 100 relatives of Anthony Crawford, as well as a 
     91-year-old man believed to be the only known survivor of an 
     attempted lynching.
       He is James Cameron, who in 1930, as a 16-year-old 
     shoeshine boy in Marion, Ind., was accused with two friends 
     of murdering a white man and raping a white woman. His 
     friends were killed. But as Mr. Cameron felt a noose being 
     slipped around his neck, a man in the crowd stepped forward 
     to proclaim Mr. Cameron's innocence. Mr. Cameron came here in 
     a gray suit and a wheelchair, his voice shaky but his 
     memories apparently fresh.
       They took the rope off my neck, those hands that had been 
     so rough and ready to kill or had already killed, they took 
     the rope off of my neck and they allowed me to start walking 
     and stagger back to the jail, which was just a half-block 
     away,'' Mr. Cameron told a news conference. ``When I got back 
     to the jail, the sheriff said, `I'm going to get you out of 
     here for safekeeping.' ''
       He learned only later, he said, that the sheriff was a 
     member of the Ku Klux Klan. ``I was saved,'' Mr. Cameron 
     said, ``by a miracle.''
       There have been 4,742 recorded lynchings in American 
     history, Ms. Landrieu said.
       Historians suspect that many more went undocumented. 
     Although the House passed antilynching legislation three 
     times in the first half of the 20th century, the 
     Senate, controlled by Southern conservatives, repeatedly 
     refused to do so. Senator George Allen of Virginia, chief 
     Republican sponsor of the new resolution, called it ``this 
     stain on the history of the United States Senate.''
       Although the Senate garnered praise on Monday for acting to 
     erase that stain, some critics said lawmakers had a long way 
     to go. Of the 100 senators, 80 were co-sponsors of the 
     resolution, and because it passed by voice vote, senators 
     escaped putting themselves on record.
       ``It's a statement in itself that there aren't 100 co-
     sponsors,'' Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, 
     said. ``It's a statement in itself that there's not an up-or-
     down vote.''
       Others described the resolution as an act of expediency for 
     Mr. Allen, who is a likely presidential candidate and who has 
     been criticized for displaying a Confederate flag at his home 
     and a noose in his law office. Mr. Allen said that they were 
     part of collections of flags and Western paraphernalia and 
     that he was motivated not by politics, but by a plea by Dick 
     Gregory, the civil rights advocate, who wrote him a letter 
     urging him not to ``choose to do nothing.''
       The memories were especially painful for the relatives of 
     Anthony Crawford, whose family was torn apart by the 
     lynching. Mr. Crawford had been a wealthy black landowner in 
     Abbeville, S.C., a cotton farmer, registered voter and 
     community leader who founded a school for black children and 
     a union for black families. In 1916, after a dispute with a 
     white man over the price of cotton seed, he was hanged from a 
     pine tree and shot more than 200 times. His family lost his 
     land, and the relatives scattered.
       ``Someone is finally recognizing our pain,'' said Alberta 
     Merriwether, a retired schoolteacher who is his great-
     granddaughter and whose mother never spoke of the lynching.
       Mrs. Merriwether's aunt Magdalene Latimer, 84, was not so 
     certain about the senators. ``I have to let God be the 
     judge,'' Ms. Latimer said, ``because I don't know if they 
     meant it out of their heart or they're just saying it out of 
     their mouth.''
    




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