[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 50 (Tuesday, March 27, 2012)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E454]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           12TH ANNUAL CONGRESSIONAL CIVIL RIGHTS PILGRIMAGE

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. JANICE HAHN

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                        Tuesday, March 27, 2012

  Ms. HAHN. Mr. Speaker. I rise today in honor of the Faith & Politics 
Institute's 12th Annual Congressional Civil Rights Pilgrimage to 
Birmingham, Selma and Montgomery, Alabama, which I had the great 
privilege of joining.
  This pilgrimage was about coming together--not as Democrats and 
Republicans--but as Americans, as men and women who believe somehow and 
some way that we have a can find a way to create the American 
community. The non-violent and peaceful Americans who risked so much 
simply to have the government honor their rights under our Constitution 
reminds me of what it means to be a patriot. In the face of brutal 
beatings, fire hoses, cattle prods, trampling by horses and in some 
cases death, these heroes forced America to face its past and present, 
and change the way it treated its own citizens.
  Our pilgrimage included visits to many historic places in Alabama 
that changed the course of history for all Americans. In Montgomery, we 
visited Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church where Dr. Martin 
Luther King, Jr. began his ministry and the parsonage where he and his 
family lived through two bombings. Other visits in Montgomery included 
First Baptist Church where the Rev. Dr. Ralph Abernathy served as 
pastor, the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Rosa Parks Museum and the 
Capitol--the building from which Governor George Wallace declared he 
would uphold segregation laws and on whose steps the Voting Rights 
March culminated.
  My father, Kenny Hahn, took an enormous risk early in his public 
career to welcome Martin Luther King Jr. to Los Angeles. He did it 
because it was the right thing to do. This trip reminded me how 
important it was to stand up for what you believe, like my father did 
in 1961, and throughout his career. We must live up to the example set 
for us by leaders of the Civil Rights era by continuing the fight for 
social justice and for the rights of all Americans. I would hope that 
every member of Congress would take this pilgrimage during their career 
and that each American learns more about a group of men and women who 
stood up for and changed our nation.

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