[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 25 (Wednesday, February 15, 2012)]
[House]
[Page H739]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           CONGRESSIONAL GOLD MEDAL FOR CIVIL RIGHTS WORKERS

  (Mr. COHEN asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. COHEN. Madam Speaker, this is Black History Month, and I 
introduced recently a proposal to have a Congressional Gold Medal 
issued to a cumulative group, the individuals who marched for freedom, 
sat in, brought about civil rights in our Nation, all the civil rights 
leaders and workers.
  In this Nation, to make it the country that Thomas Jefferson and our 
Founding Fathers wrote about, it took civil rights workers to protest 
and demonstrate and sometimes go to jail to change this country's path 
and see to it that all people were created equal, and that all people 
had equal opportunities in this Nation. I think those people deserve 
recognition because they made America's promise its reality.
  To date, we've sent out a letter asking for cosponsors three times to 
every Member of Congress, and yet we don't have a single Republican 
with us. This should be a bipartisan effort, and I would ask all my 
Republican colleagues to ask their LA's to sign on to the Congressional 
Gold Medal for civil rights workers. It's something we should come 
together with in a bipartisan fashion because it's as American as apple 
pie.

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