[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 63 (Friday, May 19, 2006)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E896]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             RECOGNIZING THE LIFE OF DAMU AMIRI IMARA SMITH

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. JOHN CONYERS, JR.

                              of michigan

                    in the house of representatives

                         Thursday, May 18, 2006

  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to Damu Amiri 
Imara Smith, a prolific fighter for justice and peace who succumbed to 
colon cancer on May 5th of this year. In keeping with his long and 
distinguished career of activism, Damu continued his fight until the 
very end. Helped along the way by his ``Army of Angels'' and inspired 
by his enduring love for his daughter Asha, Damu outlived all the 
doctors' predictions. Not letting his terminal diagnosis dampen his 
spirit, he turned his personal health crisis into a fight for better 
health care services for black and poor people.
  Just as Damu's resolve to speak truth to power was not constrained by 
his illness, neither did his sense of justice know any limit. Damu's 
concerns and actions ranged from the local to the global. He started 
out fighting for the Martin Luther King holiday and against the 
apartheid regime in South Africa. Later, his concerns expanded to 
include environmental justice; he monitored corporate pollution on 
Louisiana's Gulf Coast as national associate director for Greenpeace 
USA. He sought to unite the civil rights and environmental movements by 
founding the National Black Environmental Justice Campaign, which led 
the nationwide fight against contaminated water and waste dumps in poor 
and black communities.
  Damu furthered his concern for peace and nonviolence at home and 
abroad as the associate director of the American Friends Service 
Committee's Washington Bureau. He confronted police bruality and worked 
to end gun violence in the District of Columbia while advocating for an 
international freeze on nuclear weapons. He saw health disparities and 
the lack of adequate health care as another form of violence, and added 
his efforts to the campaign for universal health care. After September 
11th, Damu founded Black Voices for Peace. Continuing in his fearless 
tradition of speaking truth to power, Damu took on the Bush 
administration for spending billions of dollars on the Iraq war, money 
that could have been used for health care, education and basic services 
here at home.
  Damu's voice is something that we'll all dearly remember. I was 
privileged to be a guest on his WPFW radio show, ``Spirit in Action,'' 
a number of times and I will remember Damu Smith not only for being a 
tireless advocate for peace and justice, but for the generosity of his 
spirit. He could spend his entire program excoriating Condoleezza Rice 
or Colin Powell, and then end by saying, ``But you know I love you.'' 
He was able to rise above all of the injustices he spent his life 
fighting to recognize his opponents' humanity. That kind of 
bigheartedness is sorely lacking in America's public discourse today. 
We Members of Congress could stand to learn a thing or two from Damu 
Smith, and though he is no longer with us in body, but his spirit will 
live on, as always, in action.

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