[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 140 (Friday, October 28, 2005)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E2223-E2224]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     TRIBUTE TO SARAH MOORE GREENE

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR.

                              of tennessee

                    in the house of representatives

                        Friday, October 28, 2005

  Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Speaker, one of the greatest leaders and one of the 
finest women I have ever known is receiving the highest honor awarded 
by the Urban League, the Whitney M. Young Award.
  Sarah Moore Greene has devoted her life to serving her community. In 
East Tennessee, she is a pioneer in education, politics, and civil 
rights.
  She worked very hard throughout the 1950s and 1960s to desegregate 
lunch counters and theaters. She was also the first African-American to 
serve as a Tennessee delegate to the Republican National Convention, as 
well as the Knoxville Board of Education.
  Her extensive service on the Board was so groundbreaking that the 
Sarah Moore Greene Magnet Technology Academy in Knoxville is named in 
her honor.
  I have come to know Sarah quite well over the years. She worked in a 
part-time capacity for me, my late father, and Howard H. Baker, Jr.
  Mr. Speaker, this Nation is a better place today because of the life 
led by Sarah Moore Greene.
  I would like to call to the attention of my colleagues and other 
readers of the Record the following article from the October 27th 
edition of the Knoxville News Sentinel.

               [From the News Sentinel, October 27, 2005]

                         Magnet for Admiration

                          (By Chandra Harris)

       ``When people come to Knoxville'' and hear about Sarah 
     Moore Greene, ``they want to meet me,'' the 93-year-old said.
       That's because she has both an elementary school and a day 
     named in her honor. She's the go-to person for her East 
     Knoxville neighbors looking for work.
       Her name is linked with kindergarten implementation in 
     schools, after she was named the first black to serve on the 
     Knoxville Board of Education.
       When talk turns to civil rights in Knoxville, her name 
     comes up for her tireless efforts to desegregate lunch 
     counters and theaters.
       In politics, her name comes up for being the first black to 
     serve as a Tennessee delegate to the Republican National 
     Convention.
       Hundreds of awards, accolades and praise from Urban League 
     and NAACP affiliates speak to what Greene won't. Her 
     humbleness won't allow her to drum on about her pioneer days 
     on fronts no one else had yet touched.
       The Knoxville Area Urban League will let Greene's light of 
     greatness shine by bestowing on her tonight its highest 
     honor, the Whitney M. Young Award.
       Greene said the award, named after a former National Urban 
     League executive director and civil rights leader, ``touches 
     my heart the most.'' She will receive it during the league's 
     annual gala at the Knoxville Convention Center.
       She puts her humility aside when speaking of her ways with 
     a stove and the secret ingredients she uses to create mouth-
     watering homemade rolls and Key lime pie.
       On Sundays in the kitchen Greene hobbles on what she 
     sometimes calls her ``bad legs'' to put together a meal that 
     leaves faint smells of home-cooking throughout her quaint 
     home on Linden Avenue.
       Her quaint house, outfitted outside with containers of 
     flowers, was partially destroyed by a fire in the late '90s 
     but was later restored at the wish of Greene.
       ``I want to stay right here with my people,'' she said. ``I 
     don't desire to move. I can do everything from right here,'' 
     she said. ``I still drive.''
       Grocery trips and visits to the beautician are a regular 
     occurrence for Greene behind the wheel of her Dodge Stratus.
       At 6 a.m. ``I am hitting the floor and once (``Today 
     Show's'') Katie (Couric) and Matt (Lauer) go off, I know it 
     is time to start my day and answer phone calls,'' said 
     Greene.
       Moving at a snail's pace doesn't hamper Greene, who counts 
     her blessings daily for the movement of her limbs.

[[Page E2224]]

       The 50-year-plus member of Mount Zion Baptist Church said 
     she doesn't need ``spoiling'' just yet from the community, 
     ``but when I holler for some help, I hope somebody will come 
     and help me,'' she said.
       For now, ``as the young people say, 'You've got to roll 
     with the punches,' '' she said.
       It's something she has been doing since the age of 5 when 
     she lost her mother to cancer.
       ``I didn't know what it meant to have a mother,'' Greene 
     said, reflecting on her days growing up in Madisonville, 
     Tenn.
       The second oldest of four children--her two brothers and 
     sister are deceased Greene said her father was all she needed 
     to make it in a world where ``I didn't even know I was 
     discriminated against.''
       Walking beside her to school every day was ``a little white 
     girl. She lived right down the road from me. She was one of 
     my best friends,'' Greene said.
       The two would walk together for two miles before parting 
     ways; Greene would walk another mile to get to her school, 
     the colored school.
       Her father, a horticulturalist, believed in education, even 
     though he could neither read nor write. But Greene didn't 
     figure that out until her teen years ``when I saw him with 
     the (newspaper) upside down.''
       ``He bluffed me all that time,'' she said with a chuckle.
       The son of a slave, Greene's father didn't teach 
     ``bitterness or hatred to us.''
       The lessons of hate came later, after she moved to 
     Knoxville in her early 20s.
       ``I really didn't know I wasn't liked because of my skin 
     color until I came here,'' Greene said.
       ``I was all about equality and fair treatment of 
     everyone,'' said Greene of her roles during the civil rights 
     movement.
       Education was and still remains a passion of hers.
       ``This is what I dedicated my life to and I have no 
     regrets,'' said Greene, who was married for more than a 
     decade before divorcing.
       Knox County has ``not always had kindergarten,'' said 
     Greene, who operated a private kindergarten in East Knoxville 
     during the 1930s. ``This was something I pushed as a school 
     board member. I was laughed at . . .''
       ``That was my platform.''
       A platform she has not wavered from. Times have changed and 
     technology has evolved but Greene still believes children are 
     the most precious beings of our time.
       ``Your beliefs and dreams will come to pass if you have 
     some hope and someone believes in you,'' said Greene, who 
     doesn't have children of her own but considers the children 
     of Knoxville hers.
       When she was a child it was family members and friends who 
     planted her seeds of hope: ``They tell me I was walking at 8 
     months and my mother said I was going to be somebody great,'' 
     she recalls.
       Children at the Sarah Moore Greene Magnet Technology 
     Academy don't realize the enormity of the Knoxville matriarch 
     when they ask: ``Why did your mother name you after our 
     school?''
       She gives a sheepish smile, knowing her legacy is one they 
     will come to know.
       Greene spends her days striving for the betterment of all 
     people.
       ``If we all spent time doing this, in a unified way, then 
     all the problems of the world would be solved,'' she said.
       ``Some may consider me old, but age is just a figure, not a 
     mindset,'' she said. ``I am going to do all I can, for as 
     long as I can, for all people.''
       ``I want my name to be always attached to the betterment of 
     all of God's children, which I hope we all are.''

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