[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 79 (Wednesday, May 30, 2012)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E904]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     HONORING BISHOP H. H. BROOKINS

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. JANICE HAHN

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, May 30, 2012

  Ms. HAHN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the memory of Bishop H. 
H. Brookins, who passed away on Tuesday, May 22, 2012 at the age of 86.
  Bishop Brookins was a giant in the Los Angeles community and in the 
African Methodist Episcopal, A.M.E. Church both nationally and 
internationally. He was a leader among leaders who had a knack for 
creating historic ``firsts.'' Bishop Brookins is credited for 
identifying former LAPD Lieutenant Tom Bradley as the preferred 
candidate to run for Los Angeles City Council in 1963, and for 
spearheading Bradley's victory as Los Angeles's first African-American 
Council member, and again 10 years later as the city's first African-
American Mayor.
  Another Brookins ``first'' was the co-founding of the United Civil 
Rights Council, organizing 75 groups to help the Black community 
recover from the 1965 Watts Riots. Bishop Brookins served as the first 
President of UCRC, and later was a founding Board Member of Rev. Jesse 
Jackson's People United to Serve Humanity, also known as Operation 
PUSH.
  Born Hamel Hartford Brookins in Yazoo City, Mississippi on June 8, 
1925, the seventh of 10 children of sharecroppers, he first attended 
Campbell College in Jackson, Mississippi. There he became pastor of his 
first church with fewer than 20 members. By 1954, H. H. Brookins was a 
minister in Wichita, Kansas, where he was elected the first black 
president of the 200-member Interracial Ministerial Council and led 
religious and civic leaders in uniting communities following the 
Supreme Court's order to desegregate the Topeka, Kansas public schools. 
Bishop Brookins also was famous for his leadership in the struggle to 
end Apartheid in South Africa.
  The H.H. Brookins legend in Los Angeles centers around his 
extraordinary accomplishments as Pastor of First A.M.E. Church, whose 
storied multi-million dollar sanctuary lies in the historic West Adams 
district, having started with an $8 building fund. First A.M.E.'s 
congregation now has nearly 20,000 members, a community development 
corporation, senior housing, and much more. Although he has passed from 
this life, Bishop H.H. Brookins lives on in the ministries of First 
A.M.E., and in all of us who loved and admired him.
  I offer my sincere condolences to Bishop Brookins' wife, the Rev. 
Rosalynn Kyle Brookins, his two sons, Sir-Wellington Hartford Brookins 
and Steven Hartford Brookins, and his daughter, the Rev. Francine A. 
Brookins.

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