[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 64 (Wednesday, April 29, 2009)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1009-E1010]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     ON THE PASSING OF ERNIE BARNES

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. G. K. BUTTERFIELD

                           of north carolina

                    in the house of representatives

                       Wednesday, April 29, 2009

  Mr. BUTTERFIELD. Madam Speaker, today we mourn the loss of Ernie 
Barnes, an athlete, artist and North Carolina native.
  As a child, Mr. Barnes would accompany his mother to work, where she 
oversaw a prominent attorney's household staff in a home where he was 
captivated by the extensive collection of art books available to him. 
It was the start of a lifelong love of art.
  As a junior high school student, Mr. Barnes was overweight and 
introverted. He spent his time drawing and hiding from the taunting 
bullies. A sympathetic teacher helped steer him into a weightlifting 
program, which enabled him to excel in both football and track and 
field once he got to high school.
  Because of segregation, he was unable to consider nearby University 
of North Carolina or Duke University, and instead attended my alma 
mater, North Carolina Central University--then known as North Carolina 
College--on a football scholarship and majored in art.
  Mr. Barnes was drafted in by the Washington Redskins, who, upon 
discovering he was Black, traded him to the then-world champion 
Baltimore Colts. He later played offensive lineman for the San Diego 
Chargers and Denver Broncos.
  While on the playing field, Mr. Barnes said he was studying the human 
form and developing an eye for capturing the drama of sports. Each week 
he would sketch the defensive lineman who would be across from him in 
that Sunday's game.
  ``The drawings would help me understand the man I would be facing,'' 
he said in an interview.
  Mr. Barnes' work relied on elongation and distortion to create a 
sense of energy, power, grace, intensity, and fluidity. His art also 
features people with their closed eyes, reflecting his sense, as he 
once expressed it, ``we are blind to one another's humanity.''

[[Page E1010]]

  He was commissioned by the Los Angeles Olympic Committee to provide 
paintings for the Games and by the National Basketball Association to 
commemorate its 50th anniversary. He was also commissioned to provide 
paintings by the owners of the Los Angeles Lakers, New Orleans Saints, 
Oakland Raiders, and the Boston Patriots. Carolina Panthers owner Jerry 
Richardson, a teammate with the Baltimore Colts, commissioned Mr. 
Barnes to create the painting, ``Victory in Overtime,'' that 
permanently hangs at the Charlotte football stadium.
  Mr. Barnes' ability to capture the powerful energy and movement of 
sports earned him ``America's Best Painter of Sports'' by the American 
Sports Art Museum in 2004.
  In 2007, in a New York tribute exhibition sponsored by the National 
Football League and Time Warner, Time Warner Chairman and CEO Richard 
D. Parsons said, ``Imagine the courage and determination it took for a 
working class child from the segregated south in the 1940s to ignore 
all the naysayers and dare dream of becoming a successful artist.''
  Mr. Barnes's work embodied his strong personal beliefs and spirit, 
crossing political, racial, and geographic boundaries.
  Madam Speaker, I ask that my colleagues join me in observing the 
passing of a great American and one of the Nation's foremost African 
American artists. We are blessed that Mr. Barnes helped raise our 
collective consciousness and encouraged everyone to see the gifts and 
strengths in one another. We mourn his loss, celebrate his 
achievements, and send our deepest condolences to his family.

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