[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 129 (Thursday, September 23, 2010)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1737-E1738]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  HONORING THE LIFE AND WORK OF CIVIL RIGHTS PIONEER CONSTANCE BAKER 
                                 MOTLEY

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. ROSA L. DeLAURO

                             of connecticut

                    in the house of representatives

                      Thursday, September 23, 2010

  Ms. DeLAURO. Madam Speaker, I rise to honor the life of achievements 
of Judge Constance Baker Motley, a passionate and path-breaking heroine 
of the civil rights movement and a native of my hometown of New Haven.
  As my esteemed colleague, Representative John L. Lewis, remembered 
her: ``In the heart of the American South, during the early days of the 
Civil Rights Movement in the late 50s and 60s, there were only two 
lawyers that made white segregationists tremble and gave civil rights 
workers hope--Constance Baker Motley and Thurgood Marshall.'' And, 
indeed, after a youth in New Haven and an education at Fisk University, 
Motley served as Marshall's right-hand woman, progressing from his law 
clerk to one of the NAACP's top lawyers, and

[[Page E1738]]

helping Marshall to craft the winning case in Brown v. Board of 
Education.
  The landmark Brown victory in 1954 would be the capstone of many 
careers, but for Judge Motley, it was just the beginning. Indeed, her 
story is a litany of firsts--She was the first African American woman 
to represent the NAACP in court, and would win nine out of ten cases 
she argued before the Supreme Court, including the famous case of James 
Meredith against the University of Mississippi. In 1964, she became the 
first African-American woman elected to the New York State Senate. In 
1965, she became the first woman to serve as Manhattan borough 
president and to sit on the New York Board of Estimate. And in 1966, 
upon appointment to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District 
of New York, she became the first African-American woman in our history 
to serve as a federal judge.
  In short, Judge Motley, who sadly passed away in 2005, is a historic 
figure, not just in the life of New Haven but in the life of our 
nation. And I am very glad to see that she will be inducted on to the 
New Haven Freedom Trail at the end of this month. Her story is 
testament not only to the tumultuous struggles for equal rights, 
freedom, and tolerance that characterized our American story in the 
20th century, but a reminder to us all that, in America, one committed 
woman can make a difference.
  I salute Judge Motley's many contributions, and I applaud the Amistad 
Committee for choosing to honor her this month.

                          ____________________