[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 118 (Tuesday, September 10, 2013)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6320-S6323]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       16TH STREET CHURCH BOMBING

  Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, two weeks ago, thousands of people 
gathered on the National Mall in front of the Lincoln Memorial to 
celebrate the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington, where Martin 
Luther King, Jr. gave his historic ``I Have a Dream'' speech. That 
remarkable moment in this Nation's history was a peaceful day of unity 
and we rightfully remember the inspiring words of Dr. King.
  We are reminded this week of just how quickly that hope and positive 
signs of progress were challenged by a stunning act of violence. Just a 
few days after Dr. King inspired a nation with his dream for his four 
children, four other children in Birmingham were killed at their church 
because of the color of their skin. On September 15, 1963, a bomb was 
planted by members of the Ku Klux Klan at the 16th Street Baptist 
Church in Birmingham, Alabama. Addie Mae Collins, 14, Denise McNair, 
11, Carole Robertson, 14, and Cynthia Wesley, 14, were innocent victims 
of racial hatred. The inhumanity of those who conspired and killed 
children in a church may seem unimaginable in our Nation today, but, as 
Colbert King of the Washington Post noted recently, ``Before al-Qaeda, 
there was the Ku Klux Klan.''
  We celebrate the significant strides we have made with determined 
efforts in forging a more just and equal America since the KKK's reign 
of terror, and yet we cannot forget that these events occurred just 
days after the March on Washington. It occurred in the lifetime of 88 
of 100 members of this Senate body. It is our recent history, not 
ancient history.

[[Page S6321]]

  The tragic deaths of those four little girls, along with the other 
shining examples of bravery, patriotism and resolve during the Civil 
Rights movement, catalyzed passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and 
the Voting Rights Act of 1965. These laws helped to transform our 
Nation and ensure that our most basic promises to our citizens are more 
than just words on a page, honored only in their breach.
  The inspiring possibilities described so eloquently by Dr. King, and 
the depravity and horror of the Birmingham church bombing just weeks 
later, reveal an important lesson about our history. The path to 
progress in our Democracy is winding, and sometimes very, very 
difficult. We know from our shared experience that we cannot be the 
Nation that we strive to be by setting the dial on autopilot and 
assuming that all will be well. There are so many reminders of the 
winding path to progress, and recently we experienced a considerable 
detour.
  Three months ago, a narrow majority of the Supreme Court held that 
the coverage provision of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act was 
unconstitutional. Section 5, often called the ``heart of the Voting 
Rights Act,'' provided a remedy for unconstitutional discrimination in 
voting by requiring jurisdictions with the worst histories of 
discrimination to ``preclear'' all voting changes before they could 
take effect. The remedy is both necessary and important because it 
stops the discriminatory voting practice before our fellow Americans' 
rights are violated. By striking down the coverage provision for 
Section 5, the Supreme Court's ruling leaves this vital protection 
unenforceable.
  While certain barriers to participation have been eliminated, we 
continue to see discriminatory voting measures such as arbitrary 
registration rules, polling-place manipulation, voter purges, 
challenges or other devices to deny access to the ballot, as well as 
vote dilution tactics. Since the Court's recent decision in Shelby 
County, several states have already decided to impose new barriers to 
voting, thereby reversing the gains that we have made through the last 
five decades.
  These include measures taken by Texas, North Carolina, and Florida to 
undermine their citizens' right to vote and to participate in our 
democracy. But on this day, when we reflect on the contributions of our 
children to the cause of liberty, perhaps no story is more worth 
retelling than the story of the Prairie View A&M students. It is a 
story that bridges the past with both the present and the future. 
Students from that historically black university have been fighting for 
their voting rights for more than four decades now, and if not for the 
Voting Rights Act, many of these students would have been denied their 
fundamental right to vote.
  The history is well-documented in a recent Houston Chronicle article 
by Renee Lee. I ask unanimous consent that it be printed in the Record. 
In the 1970s, the Justice Department filed an action against Waller 
County and its state officials for using a questionnaire to deny 
Prairie View students the right to vote. In 1992, 19 students were 
indicted for improperly voting, which ultimately led to a U.S. Supreme 
Court ruling that authorized college students to register and vote in 
communities where they live while at school.
  In 2004, the NAACP and four Prairie View students filed a federal 
case after the county district attorney tried to enforce residency 
requirements that would keep students from voting. A Section 5 
enforcement suit was filed by civil rights organizations around the 
same time after county officials shortened the early voting period at 
the campus in violation of Section 5. This effort to narrow student 
participation came at a time when a student leader sought elective 
office. Testimony about this recent chapter at Prairie View A&M was 
submitted to Congress in support of the 2006 Reauthorization of the 
Voting Rights Act. It was compelling evidence that voting 
discrimination persists in that community and that even a Supreme Court 
ruling was not sufficient protection.
  Two years after the reauthorization of Section 5, in 2008, nearly 
1,000 Prairie View students marched in protest for the lack of an early 
voting place on campus. The county had reduced the number of early 
voting polling sites from six to one, requiring students to walk miles 
to the nearest polling location. If you did not know the long and 
tortured history of the schemes to block Prairie View A&M voters from 
their constitutionally protected rights, moving a polling place may 
seem like merely a matter of administrative convenience, but in voting, 
both history and context matter. The Justice Department under Attorney 
General Michael Mukasey ultimately entered into a consent decree with 
Waller County that required officials to restore three polling sites. 
And now, the students from this historically black university are once 
again fighting to exercise their fundamental right to vote by demanding 
an accessible polling place. The Prairie View A&M story illustrates 
that sometimes discrimination starts early, and that some officials are 
surprisingly persistent in their efforts to erect barriers in the path 
of our youngest voters. The Voting Rights Act stands as a guardian 
against these schemes to discourage young voter participation.
  But now, following the Shelby County ruling, and with a college 
leader seeking elective office in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, local 
officials have borrowed the Prairie View A&M disenfranchisement 
playbook. There, a party chairman challenged the eligibility of 
Montravius King from standing for office by claiming that Mr. King did 
not meet the residency requirement because he lived in a dorm. The 
premise of this challenge is flatly contradicted by Supreme Court 
precedent and the decades of advocacy over Prairie View A&M students' 
voter access. Nevertheless, North Carolina local officials were 
initially able to disqualify Mr. King's candidacy. There were also 
indications that some in Elizabeth City, North Carolina intended to 
employ new voter challenge procedures in the state to prevent students 
from the historically black college from voting. It is perhaps no 
wonder, then, that part of the officials' plan also involved removing 
the polling place from the campus. Last week, local election board 
reversed itself only after a huge public outcry, but these events 
reveal that some things have changed and some, unfortunately, have not. 
I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record an article from 
the Washington Post by Mary Curtis, which documents the efforts by 
North Carolina's state officials to infringe on the fundamental right 
to vote.
  When President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law in 1965, 
he declared that: ``Through this act, and its enforcement, an important 
instrument of freedom passes into the hands of millions of our 
citizens.'' We must remain vigilant and protect the rights of all 
Americans to exercise this fundamental right.
  The recent Supreme Court decision placed the burden on Congress to 
respond with a legislative fix. It is therefore our duty and 
constitutional obligation to not waver from the path of greater 
political inclusion that we have set for ourselves and the Nation 
through our bipartisan support of the Voting Rights Act.
  We must restore the vital protections that were weakened by the 
Supreme Court's ruling. We must provide additional remedies for states 
and counties, anywhere in the Nation, that not only have a history of 
discriminating against their voters, but continue to do so. We must 
extend the reach of these protections to states that commit serious 
voting rights violations in the future. We must amend the existing 
provisions of the Act to make those protections more effective. And we 
must provide greater transparency for changes to voting procedures so 
that voters are made aware of these changes. These are the kinds of 
bipartisan solutions that we should all be able to agree on.
  As we continue the fight to combat discrimination, we should remember 
the words of Dr. King. We should remember the aspirations of students 
like Montravius King. We should remember the contributions of the 
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and Congressional leader John 
Lewis. And we should remember that those four girls who died in the 
16th Street Baptist Church Bombing, and who are being posthumously 
honored today with Congressional Gold Medals, were part of a movement 
that helped make America better, stronger and

[[Page S6322]]

more just. The way to truly honor them is not by words alone but 
through our actions and leadership. While we commemorate the sacrifice 
of these four girls, our work does not end with this commemoration. Our 
work is ahead of us and we must act together in a bipartisan manner to 
protect the fundamental right to vote for all Americans. All of our 
children are depending on it.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

               [From the Washington Post, Aug. 29, 2013]

Past is Present as North Carolina Honors 1963 March and Battles Voting 
                                  Laws

                          (By Mary C. Curtis)

       Charlotte.--In North Carolina, commemorations of the 50th 
     anniversary of the March on Washington and Martin Luther 
     King's dream credited past struggles while a current battle 
     over voting laws took center stage.
       In an uptown Charlotte park Wednesday, the crowd used the 
     examples of civil rights pioneers in a continuation of the 
     Moral Monday protests against conservative laws from the 
     Republican-controlled state legislature. Similar gatherings 
     were planned in each of the state's 13 congressional 
     districts. While many issues, including education and health 
     care spending, were reflected in comments and emblazoned on 
     signs, the new state voter-ID bill was a unifying cause.
       Later Wednesday evening, several Democratic and Republican 
     legislators took questions from their Mecklenburg County 
     constituents in a raucous forum called, ironically as it 
     turned out, ``Solving It Together.'' At the top of the list 
     in hundreds of questions submitted beforehand--voter-ID laws.
       The new laws have already garnered national publicity, and 
     not the kind North Carolina likes. At the state CEO Forum in 
     Raleigh last week, former secretary of state Colin Powell 
     criticized the voting legislation, saying, ``These kinds of 
     actions do not build on the base.'' He made those remarks 
     after GOP Gov. Pat McCrory, who had signed the bill into law, 
     addressed the group, though McCrory later said he left before 
     the retired general spoke.
       Besides requiring photo ID, the bill shortens early voting 
     by a week, ends preregistration for 16- and 17-year-olds, 
     eliminates same-day voter registration, Sunday voting and 
     straight-ticket voting, prohibits university students from 
     using their college IDs and increases the number of poll 
     watchers who can challenge a voter's eligibility, among other 
     provisions. It is currently being challenged in court and 
     Sen. Kay Hagan (D-N.C.) has asked Attorney General Eric 
     Holder to take action as the Justice Department has in Texas.
       Actions of GOP-controlled elections boards in North 
     Carolina have also been grabbing headlines, from the closing 
     of a polling place at Appalachian State University to the 
     ruling that a student at historically black Elizabeth City 
     State University cannot run for city council using his 
     college address to establish residency.
       At Charlotte's Marshall Park, a program of speakers and 
     singers, as well as the sunny weather, duplicated the mood of 
     the 1963 Washington march. Under a voter registration tent, a 
     pledge card from the state NAACP urged attendees to be part 
     of the ``Forward Together, Not One Step Back'' movement voter 
     empowerment effort. The Rev. William Barber, head of the 
     state NAACP, was on the program.
       Amy Gollinger, a physician from Davidson, N.C., held a sign 
     reading ``Protect every American's Right to Vote,'' which she 
     alternated with ones that said ``Protect women's rights'' and 
     ``Why deny Medicaid to struggling families?'' referencing 
     McCrory's decision to refuse federal Medicaid funds. She said 
     Wednesday was a ``perfect time'' to protest. ``Even though 
     we've come far since 1963, our state legislature has shown we 
     have much further to go, '' she said. ``It's unbelievable 
     we've gone from one of the most progressive states to one of 
     the most regressive. I hope it empowers voters to get out and 
     make a change.''
       Sitting next to Gollinger with a sign reading ``Stop the 
     attacks on public education!'' James Davidson of Charlotte 
     said, ``I'm here for Martin Luther King,'' and called 
     proposals from the legislature ``going back to Jim Crow.'' He 
     said he hoped new laws would spur citizens to action. ``They 
     went to sleep and didn't get out to vote,'' he said.
       At the Mecklenburg legislators' forum at Central Piedmont 
     Community College, the crowd in the packed auditorium loudly 
     registered its approval, disapproval or disbelief as 
     representatives of the state House and Senate explained 
     actions on voting, education and the back-and-forth over 
     attempts to change control of Charlotte Douglas International 
     Airport from the city to a state authority to a commission.
       In heavily Democratic Charlotte, audience sentiment at the 
     forum, sponsored in part by local media outlets, was loudly 
     skeptical of the Republican-led changes.
       Voting rights led the discussion, with one questioner at 
     the microphone asking for data on the fraud that is given as 
     reason for the photo-ID law (the answer came in anecdotal 
     examples) and another quoting former president Bill Clinton's 
     words at the Washington commemoration of the 1963 march, ``A 
     great democracy does not make it harder to vote than to buy 
     an assault weapon.''
       From somewhere in the crowd came the tweet that there was 
     much more debate onstage than in the North Carolina General 
     Assembly, where GOP super-majorities were accused of rushing 
     through bills.
       It seemed less Old South vs. New South than voter voices 
     vs. ALEC (the American Legislative Exchange Council), with 
     one question comparing North Carolina's bills to model 
     legislation from the conservative nonprofit. State Rep. Bill 
     Brawley, a Republican and active ALEC member, said he 
     believed in the organization's goals of limited government, 
     free market capitalism and federalism; Rep. Ruth Samuelson, a 
     Charlotte Republican, said she has attended one of the 
     group's meetings. All of the legislators said they serve 
     their constituents, not any organization.
       State Sen. Dan Clodfelter, a Charlotte Democrat, said he 
     remembered a time when ``we weren't afraid in this state to 
     be different from the states around us,'' when ideas ``didn't 
     come out of anybody's playbook.''
       After the forum, voters lingered to continue the contact 
     with officials some thought had not been listening closely 
     enough during the legislative session. Clodfelter was wistful 
     as he spoke of the times North Carolina passed pioneering 
     laws, such as the Racial Justice Act, which allowed death-row 
     inmates to appeal their sentences and have them converted to 
     life in prison without parole if they could prove racial bias 
     in their cases. (It was repealed this year.) ``Now we're 
     known for the wrong kind of things,'' he said. When one of 
     his Republican colleagues noted that the Democrat had 
     Wednesday's crowd on his side, Clodfelter said he answered, 
     ``You made them that way.''
       State Sen. Jeff Tarte, a Republican who had managed to be 
     conciliatory in his conservatism during the panel, insisted 
     he ``loved'' the night's verbal battles. ``It's what the 
     American system is all about,'' he said, though since his 
     party passed its legislative agenda, it was easy for him to 
     be magnanimous.
       Samuelson sat on the edge of the stage as the crowd 
     filtered out. She defended her support of the voting bill, 
     and noted a New York Times editorial ``The Decline of North 
     Carolina'' that criticized the general Assembly's actions and 
     caused quite a stir in this image-conscious state. She said 
     studies have found that ``after this bill,'' it's easier to 
     vote in North Carolina than New York.
       When asked what she thought of congressman and civil rights 
     veteran John Lewis's attack on voter-ID laws, particularly on 
     the date marking the 50th anniversary of his appearance with 
     other civil rights leaders at the 1963 March on Washington, 
     she said, ``I appreciate the sacrifices they made, I 
     appreciate the emotion around this issue,'' then added, ``I'm 
     trying to protect the integrity of their vote. . . . They 
     worked hard for that vote; I want to make sure it doesn't get 
     stolen.''
       State Sen. Malcolm Graham, a Charlotte Democrat, had said 
     onstage that in North Carolina you're more likely to get 
     struck by lightning than be affected by voter fraud. He said 
     that when his daughter returned to historically black 
     Winston-Salem State University this year, she and other 
     students were greeted with stories that a county board of 
     elections chair wanted to eliminate the school's early voting 
     site. ``Our national brand as a state has been tarnished,'' 
     he said.
       After the forum, Graham said he believed the passion would 
     extend past Wednesday night. ``This thing has legs,'' he 
     said. The test, he said, would be the tough reelection Hagan 
     faces in 2014. ``That's the line in the sand the Democrats 
     have to draw.''
                                  ____


               [From the Houston Chronicle, Aug. 1, 2013]

     Prairie View A&M Student Fights for Voting Poll Site on Campus

                           (By Renee C. Lee)

       A Prairie View A&M University student leader is calling on 
     officials to add a campus polling place to remedy what she 
     and a civil rights leader described as decades of voter 
     suppression.
       Priscilla Barbour, president of the Student Government 
     Association at the historically black university, sent a 
     letter to Texas Secretary of State John Steen and Waller 
     County Registrar Robyn German last week requesting that 
     action be taken by Oct. 1. Barbour says students' voting 
     rights are being violated because the nearest polling 
     location is more than a mile away.
       The Oct. 1 first deadline, she said, would allow time to 
     make students aware of the new polling place before the 
     November elections.
       Barbour, a senior, hopes her request will end a battle that 
     former Prairie View students have failed to win over the 
     years.
       ``We've always had problems,'' said Barbour, who is active 
     with the Texas League of Young Voters. ``Voting is supposed 
     to be something that's convenient, something you have the 
     right to do without walking a great distance or standing in 
     line.''
       The political science major said students were forced 
     during last year's general election to wait in a long line to 
     vote at the polling location at the local community center.
       The city of Prairie View accommodates students by placing a 
     polling location on campus, but Waller County officials have 
     refused to do the same, she said.
       German, the county's new registrar, could not be reached 
     for comment Wednesday.

[[Page S6323]]

     Steen's spokeswoman, Alicia Pierce, said Steen was drafting a 
     letter to German.
       ``We don't generally determine polling locations,'' Pierce 
     said. ``That decision is made at the county level, but the 
     secretary is willing to meet with Miss Barbour. We'll be glad 
     to work with her.''
       Gary Bledsoe, president of the NAACP state chapter, said 
     Waller County has a history of voter intimidation and 
     suppression of black voters.


                          Repeated complaints

       The lack of polling places on campus, lost voter 
     registration applications and problems with ballot boxes are 
     among the many voting issues that have come up time and again 
     in the county, he said.
       ``Students are entitled to a voting poll on campus,'' 
     Bledsoe said. ``They have been fighting for one for many 
     years. It's a righteous request.''
       Barbour's action follows a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling 
     that struck down a key provision in the Voting Rights Act. 
     The law protects minority voters from discrimination at the 
     polls and, until June, required nine states with a 
     discriminatory history, including Texas, to get federal 
     approval before making changes to election laws.
       The ruling gave Texas and other states the green light to 
     push through voter ID laws, which civil rights leaders say 
     will inhibit minority voting.
       Prairie View has been at the center of voting right issues 
     as far back as the 1970s, when the U.S. attorney general 
     filed action against Waller County and state officials for 
     the use a questionnaire that denied Prairie View students the 
     right to vote.
       In 1992, 19 students were indicted for improperly voting, 
     which led to a Supreme Court ruling that authorized students 
     to register and vote in communities where they live.
       The NAACP and four students filed a federal lawsuit in 2004 
     after the county district attorney tried to enforce residency 
     requirements that would keep students from voting. Another 
     suit was filed around the same time after county officials 
     shortened the early voting period at the campus without 
     Justice Department approval.
       The district attorney rescinded his action as part of a 
     settlement and county officials added an extra early voting 
     day on campus after being questioned by the Justice 
     Department.


                            Previous protest

       In 2008, nearly 1,000 Prairie View students marched in 
     protest of the lack of an early voting place on campus. The 
     county, citing budget concerns, reduced the number of early 
     voting polling sites from six to one, requiring students to 
     walk miles to the polling location. The Justice Department 
     instructed county officials to add three polling sites.
       Barbour said she was a apprehensive about sending her 
     letters but figured she had nothing to lose.
       ``Even if nothing's accomplished, now the tone is set,'' 
     she said. ``I'm not the first to tackle the issue and I'm 
     sure I won't be the last. This gives students a chance to be 
     knowledgeable and take a stand.''

                          ____________________