[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 78 (Wednesday, June 5, 2013)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E809]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        HONORING HOLLIS WATKINS

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. BENNIE G. THOMPSON

                             of mississippi

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, June 5, 2013

  Mr. Thompson of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor a 
remarkable public servant, Mr. Hollis Watkins who was born in July 29, 
1941, in Lincoln County, Mississippi near the town of Summit. He is the 
youngest and twelfth child of sharecroppers, John and Lena Watkins who 
were able to purchase a farm during 1949.
  Mr. Watkins graduated from Lincoln County Training School in 1960. 
During his youth, he attended the National Association for the 
Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) youth meetings led by Medgar 
Evers. He met Robert Parris Moses, commonly known as Bob Moses, who was 
organizing for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in 
1961. Mr. Watkins joined SNCC and began canvassing potential voters 
around McComb, Mississippi. He participated in McComb's first sit-in at 
a Woolworth's lunch counter and was jailed for 34 days. During his time 
in jail, he was threatened on several occasions, including once being 
shown a noose and told that he would be hung that night. Later, his 
participation in a walk out at McComb's colored high school led to 39 
more days in jail.
  Mr. Watkins' activism had a personal price, as many of his extended 
family ostracized him and would not recognize him in public for fear of 
losing their jobs in white reprisals.
  Veron Dahmer, president of the Forrest County, Mississippi NAACP 
asked SNCC for help with voter registration and Mr. Watkins moved to 
Hattiesburg, Mississippi to help with that project. He worked half days 
at Dahmer's sawmill to pay his way, and spent the rest of the time 
organizing voter registration projects.
  Mr. Watkins was one of many people spied upon by the Mississippi 
State Sovereignty Commission, which investigated civil rights workers 
and created files on them for government use. His name appears in the 
files 63 times. Some of the reports refer to him as a communist, 
although he had little idea what that even meant at the time.
  Mr. Watkins traveled to Atlantic City, New Jersey for the 1964 
Democratic Party convention in support of the Mississippi Freedom 
Democratic Party (MFDP), which attempted to unseat the regular 
Mississippi Democratic Party as the true representatives of the state. 
He was present when Fannie Lou Hamer gave her testimony to the 
credentials committee, and later when Hamer and Dr. Martin Luther King, 
Jr. debated over whether the MFDP should accept the compromise of two 
seats at the convention offered by Lyndon Baines Johnson.
  In 1988, Mr. Watkins returned to the Democratic Party National 
Convention as a delegate for Jesse Jackson, Sr.'s Presidential 
Campaign. Beginning in 1989 Mr. Watkins joined, and now serves as 
President of Southern Echo, a group dedicated to providing assistance 
to civil rights and education-reform groups throughout the south. He 
was honored by Jackson State University with a Fannie Lou Hamer 
Humanitarian Award in 2011.
  Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join me in recognizing Mr. Hollis 
Watkins for his dedication to serving others.

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