[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 7 (Friday, January 12, 2007)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E87]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    TRIBUTE TO DR. WILLIAM ANDERSON

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                      HON. SANFORD D. BISHOP, JR.

                               of georgia

                    in the house of representatives

                        Friday, January 12, 2007

  Mr. BISHOP of Georgia. Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor Dr. 
William Anderson, for his lifetime commitment to social change and the 
civil rights movement.
  Dr. Anderson was born on December 12, 1927 and is a native of 
Americus, GA. He graduated from Alabama State College, the University 
of Osteopathic and Health Sciences and is certified in general surgery.
  Throughout his career, as a doctor of osteopathic medicine, Dr. 
Anderson has contributed to the medical community, in Albany where he 
began his career as well as in Detroit, MI, and Kirksville, MO.
  However, in the segregationist South of the 1950s and early 1960s, 
Dr. Anderson's medical career became intertwined with the civil rights 
movement. At that time, there were no black hospitals in Albany. In 
white hospitals, Dr. Anderson was denied privileges such as admitting 
patients and using equipment--making it virtually impossible to 
practice medicine. So, Dr. Anderson improvised, servicing his patients 
by setting up his practice in a private office.
  In 1961, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who Dr. Anderson had met a few 
years before, brought his movement to Albany. Soon, Dr. Anderson 
assumed the role of President of the Albany Movement. Over the next few 
months, hundreds of protestors were jailed for staging sit-ins at local 
bus terminals, including Dr. King and Reverend Ralph Abernathy. History 
tells us that the Albany movement, amid the hostile environment of 
southwest Georgia, was a struggle whose efforts were consistently 
thwarted by a determined sector of the white population.
  However, history also tells us that the Albany Movement in which Dr. 
Anderson played an integral role has become viewed as a milestone in 
the greater civil rights movement. A year after the Albany movement 
began, hundreds of voters were registered and the city commission 
removed all segregation statutes from the books.
  Madam Speaker, none of this could have been achieved without the 
efforts of Dr. Anderson. He is an inspiration for young men and women, 
and I stand here today to commend him for his service to his community.

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