[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 114 (Tuesday, September 13, 2005)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1819-E1820]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            HONORING MR. HYMAN BOOKBINDER: INDEFATIGABLE BAT
                         TLER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. LOIS CAPPS

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                      Tuesday, September 13, 2005

  Mrs. CAPPS. I rise today to pay tribute to Mr. Hyman Bookbinder, one 
of our nation's leading advocates for human rights and equality.
  The terrible stories and photographs coming out of Louisiana and 
Mississippi remind us that, among other things, there still is a race 
divide in America. This is not to say that the response to the disaster 
was dictated by racial considerations. But it is to say that sadly no 
accident that the segment of the population that bore much of the brunt 
of the suffering was predominantly poor and black.
  At the same time, we can say with some pride that our country has 
made significant progress toward a more just society. It's far from 
enough but giant strides have been made, particularly in the area of 
social equality.
  An article in Sunday's Washington Post reminded us that these 
advances did not just happen. They happened because heroes among us 
made them happen. I have attached a copy of the article for my 
colleagues.
  The article tells the story about the successful 1960 effort to 
integrate Glen Echo Park, an amusement park in Montgomery County, 
Maryland, just outside the District line. Glen Echo was a fabulous 
place of swimming pools, dance halls, carousels, a roller coaster and 
other summer time amusements. It was so popular that a DC trolley from 
the Capitol Hill area--and neighborhoods east--was constantly full with 
kids heading northwest and up MacArthur Boulevard to this delightful 
recreation spot.
  But not African American kids. They were allowed on the trolleys but 
banned from the park. And the ban was enforced by the Montgomery County 
police.
  In 1960, a group of courageous Howard University students--Dion 
Diamond, Michael Proctor, and Gwendolyn Britt (now a Maryland state 
senator)--decided to test the race policy by riding the merry-go-round. 
They were abused and kicked out.
  So they turned to ask for help from the prosperous white Bannockbum 
community living near the park. And, almost immediately, a movement 
erupted. Hyman Bookbinder, an AFL-CIO official, and long-time lobbyist 
for civil rights and Jewish causes, used his organizing and public 
relations skills to force the owners of Glen Echo Park to back down. 
Bookie, as everyone calls him, was later an aide to Presidents Kennedy 
and Johnson. Esther Delaplaine organized the mothers and Ida Leivick, a 
teacher at the local school, worked with her colleagues. Finally the 
Supreme Court stepped in and forced Glen Echo either to open up or shut 
down.
  The Howard/Bannockbum coalition had prevailed.
  This past Saturday, the people who made it happen gathered at Glen 
Echo to commemorate a moment in time when all things seemed possible in 
America.
  They still are. We just need more people who are willing to stick 
their necks out the way these Howard University students and 
suburbanites did in 1960.
  I particularly want to salute Hyman Bookbinder. He is now 89 and over 
the past sixty-five years, he has been at the forefront of the struggle 
for human rights, not just down the street in Montgomery County but 
throughout the world. I've been in the House of Representatives for 
eight years but I have heard about Bookie's years as a civil rights 
lobbyist when he was known as the 101st Senator. When people were 
suffering, he was here fighting, pushing, and cajoling to make things 
better.
  He has helped change this country.
  To put it simply, we need more people like Bookie. Thankfully he is 
still here, always fighting the good fight and living the Biblical 
injunction: ``Justice, justice, you shall pursue.''

               [From washingtonpost.com, Sept. 11, 2005]

                   Marking a Park's Social Revolution

                          (by Ann E. Marimow)

       The last time Dion Diamond walked through the gates of Glen 
     Echo Amusement Park, he was ushered out after two minutes. 
     The last time Michael Proctor tried to ride the merry-go-
     round there, he was arrested.
       That was in 1960, when blacks were not allowed to swim in 
     the park's famed Crystal Pool, with its slide and fountain, 
     and also could not ride on the roller coaster.
       On Saturday, the two civil rights activists returned for 
     the first time to mark the anniversary of the picket lines 
     that led to the desegregation of the park and ultimately to a 
     U.S. Supreme Court case.
       ``I was never in here for more than a couple minutes,'' 
     said Diamond, 64, laughing and shaking his head in disbelief 
     as he looked out at the same carousel, with its ornate 
     woodcarved horses and cheerful organ music.
       Even though the park's private owners quietly opened the 
     gates to all in 1961, Proctor had never returned.
       ``I told my kids about it,'' the Hughesville doctor said. 
     ``But way down deep, there were some negative feelings.''
       The effort to integrate Glen Echo Park, in the summer of 
     1960, came after the first sit-ins at segregated lunch 
     counters in North Carolina and during student protests 
     throughout the region.
       But Glen Echo Park was notable because of the support the 
     protesters, black Howard University students, received from 
     white residents of the nearby Bannockburn neighborhood, some 
     of whom were experienced labor leaders. They walked side by 
     side for five weeks that summer--and they came together again 
     yesterday.
       Browsing a collage of black-and-white photos and yellowed 
     newspaper clippings, they recalled some of the most dramatic 
     moments when Proctor and four other members of the D.C. Non-
     Violent Action Group were arrested for refusing to get off 
     the merry-go-round.
       In 1964, the Supreme Court ruled that the Montgomery County 
     deputies had improperly enforced private segregation.
       Outside the park gates in 1960, the students brought a 
     sense of fearlessness and enthusiasm. Stay-at-home mothers 
     from Bannockburn were the reliable foot soldiers on the 
     picket line, and the labor leaders brought political 
     connections and organizing strategies.
       Esther Delaplaine, who lived five blocks from the park, 
     mobilized fellow mothers. She recalled the intense pain and 
     frustration of the time. ``We could ride the merry-go-round, 
     but [black students] got arrested,'' said Delaplaine, 81.
       Her daughter Rocky led yesterday's gathering of 300 people 
     in an emotional rendition of ``O Freedom,'' a song that was 
     sung on the picket line,
       Hyman Bookbinder, then an AFL-CIO lobbyist for civil 
     rights, was joined yesterday by his daughter and 
     granddaughter. ``The movement wasn't only for us old-timers. 
     It was for our families,'' said Bookbinder, 89. ``This event 
     is a reminder.''
       For some involved in the sit-ins and picket lines, it was 
     too painful to return. Those who attended said it was as if 
     they were transported in time.

[[Page E1820]]

       Seeing the trolley car parked in front of the gates, Tina 
     Clarke said she felt like a teenager again, as she was when 
     she protested with the county chapter of the NAACP. She said 
     she still could feel the spit on her cheek from a white male 
     heckler that stained the white collar of her blouse.
       ``There is no time frame on when pain and suffering should 
     end,'' said Clarke, 67, African American liaison for 
     Montgomery County Executive Douglas M. Duncan (D).
       Clarke said she had to explain to friends and relatives who 
     questioned her decision to return to the park that it is now 
     an arts and cultural center operated by a nonprofit 
     partnership with lands managed by the National Park Service.
       ``It's not just my history; it's our history,'' she said. 
     ``It's part of what helped us get to where we are today. If 
     none of these things happened, where would we be?''
       But the park is a troubling memory for some who were 
     children at the time. When Vernon Ricks drives past the park 
     from his home in Potomac, he remembers riding the trolley car 
     to the entrance on Sundays. From the windows, he could see 
     the neon lights, the merry-go-round and the wooden roller 
     coaster, but he could not enter. He attended the gathering 
     because his wife, Janet, wanted to ``start the healing of a 
     scar,'' she said.
       ``To me, it is still a symbol of segregation,'' said Ricks, 
     66. ``I'm still not happy to be here.''
       Later, he added, ``Don't say I'm coming back.''
       Taking her husband's hand, Janet Ricks said, ``Yes, you 
     are. Yes, you are.''

     

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