[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 95 (Monday, June 15, 2015)]
[House]
[Pages H4350-H4352]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
J. WATIES WARING JUDICIAL CENTER
Mr. CRAWFORD. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the
bill (H.R. 2131) to designate the Federal building and United States
courthouse located at 83 Meeting Street in Charleston, South Carolina,
as the ``J. Waties Waring Judicial Center''.
The Clerk read the title of the bill.
The text of the bill is as follows:
H.R. 2131
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of
the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. J. WATIES WARING FEDERAL BUILDING AND UNITED
STATES COURTHOUSE.
(a) Designation.--The Federal building and United States
courthouse located at 83 Meeting Street in Charleston, South
Carolina, shall be known and designated as the ``J. Waties
Waring Judicial Center''.
(b) References.--Any reference in a law, map, regulation,
document, paper, or other
[[Page H4351]]
record of the United States to the Federal building and
United States courthouse referred to in subsection (a) shall
be deemed to be a reference to the ``J. Waties Waring
Judicial Center''.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from
Arkansas (Mr. Crawford) and the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Eddie
Bernice Johnson) each will control 20 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Arkansas.
General Leave
Mr. CRAWFORD. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members
may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks
and include extraneous material on H.R. 2131.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Arkansas?
There was no objection.
Mr. CRAWFORD. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, H.R. 2131 designates the Federal building and the United
States courthouse located at 83 Meeting Street in Charleston, South
Carolina, as the J. Waties Waring Judicial Center.
Judge Waring was born in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1880. After
becoming a lawyer, he was in the private practice of law and eventually
served as corporation counsel for Charleston, South Carolina.
In 1942, after serving as assistant U.S. Attorney, Judge Waring was
appointed by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to serve as a judge
for the United States District Court for the Eastern District of South
Carolina.
During his tenure on the bench, Judge Waring's opinions had a
significant impact on civil rights. For example, in the case of Duvall
v. School Board, he ruled that equal pay must be guaranteed for equally
qualified schoolteachers, regardless of race, and his dissent in Briggs
v. Elliott stating that ``separate educational facilities are
inherently unequal'' formed the legal foundation for the Supreme
Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education.
This bill is supported by the entire South Carolina delegation. Given
Judge Waring's dedication to the law, it is fitting to name this
Federal building and courthouse after him.
I reserve the balance of my time.
Ms. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON of Texas. I yield myself such time as I may
consume.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this legislation. This bill is, of
course, to name the U.S. courthouse in Charleston, South Carolina,
after Judge Julius Waties Waring.
During Judge Waring's time as a Federal judge in the Eastern District
of South Carolina, he was a trailblazer in pursuit of justice for
African Americans. Judge Waring consistently ruled for African American
plaintiffs in cases involving voting rights, unequal pay, and civil
rights.
Before Judge Waring was named to the Federal bench, he served as
assistant U.S. attorney and as corporation counsel for the City of
Charleston.
He is most famously remembered for a 1951 landmark school segregation
case. Judge Waring wrote in his dissent on a three-judge panel that
racial segregation in public schools was ``per se inequality.'' He
became the first Federal judge to take that position since Plessy v.
Ferguson ruled for separate but equal. In his dissent, he went further
to denounce segregation as an ``evil that must be eradicated.'' His
dissent is commonly understood to provide the intellectual underpinning
of the Supreme Court outlawing school segregation in Brown v. Board of
Education.
Because Judge Waring's decisions were considered controversial at the
time, he endured threats of violence and was alienated from most of
Charleston. Soon after Judge Waring's momentous decision, he retired
from the Federal bench and moved to New York, where he later died.
Fifty years after his death, this legislation naming the Federal
courthouse in Charleston in his honor is appropriate because of Judge
Waring's courageous judicial service in the face of fierce opposition
to the bedrock American value of ``justice for all.''
I urge my colleagues to support this bill.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. CRAWFORD. Mr. Speaker, again, I would just urge my colleagues to
support H.R. 2131.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. SANFORD. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 2131, a
bill to designate the Federal building and United States courthouse
located at 83 Meeting Street in Charleston, South Carolina, as the ``J.
Waties Waring Judicial Center'' and urge my colleagues to support this
bill. I thank Representative Jim Clyburn for introducing the bill,
which has the full support of our state's congressional delegation.
This bill is a reflection of two things: human kindness and bold
leadership. There is a saying that, ``One of the most difficult things
to give away is kindness; it usually comes back to you.'' This bill is,
in some ways, a reflection of that notion. Under the category of human
kindness, this bill came as a result of a phone call from Senator Fritz
Hollings asking that the name on the courthouse in Charleston named
after him be changed to honor the memory of the late Judge Julius
Waties Waring. Although Judge Waring has a remarkable legal legacy, in
the case of Senator Hollings, it all began with human kindness. In the
1940's, Fritz Hollings was a young attorney in Charleston and practiced
in front of Judge Waring. What impressed him was that Judge Waring was,
``damned nice to me. He made sure young lawyers weren't bumfuzzled or
run over by senior lawyers.'' If the story stopped there, we probably
would not be discussing this bill today.
Instead, it is Judge Waring's bold leadership that makes this
commemoration particularly fitting. As a federal district court judge,
J. Waties Waring ruled on several key cases that set the stage for one
of the most significant court cases in our nation's history. In the
1940's, Judge Waring heard and ruled on cases that opened South
Carolina's ``white only'' Democratic primary and forcing equal pay for
black and white school teachers. By 1948, TIME Magazine declared him as
``The Man They Love to Hate'' in South Carolina. In fact, in 1950, the
South Carolina House of Representatives debated a resolution asking
Judge Waring and his wife to leave the state and even offered to pay
for the one-way tickets. This all came before his dissenting vote in
the 1951 Briggs v. Elliott case involving segregated busing in
Clarendon County in South Carolina. In that case, Thurgood Marshall
argued that black students were being treated unfairly because although
there were three times as many black students, funding for
transportation was only half. As a result, black students were walking
up to nine miles to school. The case was decided against the plaintiff
by a 2-1 vote, with Judge Waring voting in dissent. In his opinion,
Waring argued that segregation was ``an evil that must be eradicated''
and a result of ``unreasonable, unscientific and . . . unadulterated
prejudice.'' His dissent would travel with the case all the way to the
Supreme Court, where the Briggs case became one of five cases decided
with Brown v. Board of Education, which recognized segregation as a
violation of the 14th Amendment.
Although Judge Waring left the bench not long after the Briggs case,
the impact of his leadership still resides today. I think naming this
building after Judge Waring is a particularly fitting commemoration of
his bold leadership, his willingness to take a stand, and the human
kindness that's being extended by Senator Hollings back to Judge
Waring.
Mr. CLYBURN. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 2131, a bill to
rename the federal courthouse in Charleston, South Carolina in honor of
Judge J. Waties Waring. This bill is a tribute to two men, two
outstanding South Carolinians. The first, Judge Waring, for whom the
bill will name the courthouse, was a federal judge in South Carolina
during the 1940s and 50s who made landmark and courageous rulings on
civil rights.
The second is known to many in the Congress, Senator Ernest F.
``Fritz'' Hollings whose name is currently on this courthouse, and who
has requested it be changed as a long overdue honor to Judge Waring.
The son of a confederate soldier, Julius Waties Waring, was born July
27, 1880 in Charleston, and graduated from the College of Charleston in
1900. He became an attorney and after practicing in Charleston for
several decades was nominated by President Franklin Roosevelt to the
U.S. District Court in 1941.
While there was little in his background that foretold an evolution
on the issue, soon after ascending to the bench, Waring would become an
iconoclast and an outcast in his hometown because of his rulings on
civil rights cases.
In the 1944 Duvall v. School Board decision, Judge Waring ordered
equal pay for teachers, regardless of race.
In 1947, in Elmore v. Rice, Judge Waring struck down South Carolina's
all-white Democratic primary.
In 1952, in his most famous opinion, Judge Waring dissented from the
ruling in Briggs v. Elliott, arguing that ``separate but equal'' was
[[Page H4352]]
unconstitutional. While a dissenting opinion at the time, on appeal to
the U.S. Supreme Court, his opinion would form the basis of the
unanimous decision in Brown v. Board of Education, which struck down
racial segregation in all public schools in America.
For my entire tenure in Congress, these words from Judge Waring's
dissent have been on the wall of my Congressional Office: ``They showed
beyond a doubt that the evils of segregation and color prejudice come
from early training . . . and that is an evil that must be
eradicated.''
Taking these stands in the 1940s and 50s was not without consequence.
His experiences gave currency to the biblical admonition that ``a
prophet is not without honor save in his own homeland.'' Waring was
ostracized in Charleston and endured harassment and attacks on his
home. He retired from the bench in 1952, left his hometown and moved to
New York.
He had made his mark, however, and his legacy endures. I recall
attending his graveside services in 1968, which was sparsely attended
except for several of Charleston's African American community and a few
whites who stood off at a distance.
Thankfully, history has given Judge Waring the favorable recognition
denied to him during his life, and passage of his bill will rightfully
add to this acclaim.
It is often stated that ``the difference between a moment and a
movement is sacrifice.'' Judge Waring's sacrifices put him at the
forefront of a movement. His courage in standing up for what was right,
will endure in our nation's memory as a powerful example of
statesmanship that must continually be sought, regardless of the issues
of the day.
Of course, none of this today would be possible were it not for
Senator Ernest Fitzgerald Hollings. Fritz Hollings' record is familiar
to all of us here.
Throughout his career, as Governor of South Carolina when Clemson
University was integrated and in the United States Senate, when Fritz
saw a problem he set about to solve it. When the plight of the poor was
exposed to him in the late 1960s, he authored the book, The Case
Against Hunger.
He led hunger tours to highlight the problem, and ultimately
championed the successful Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for
Women, Infants and Children or WIC. As Chairman of the Senate Commerce
Committee, he helped usher in a generation of landmark social policy,
providing aid of the needy and protecting our environment.
He was never afraid to make difficult choices, or to change positions
when he thought it warranted.
In the 1980s, Fritz helped secure funding to build the annex to the
Courthouse that is the subject of this legislation, and the entire
facility was subsequently named in his honor.
Never content to allow past injustices to go unaddressed, however, he
has publicly called on Congress to replace his name on the building,
with that of the highly deserving, long unheralded, J. Waties Waring.
This selfless act of statesmanship is just the most recent example of
Fritz's visionary leadership.
I thank my colleagues in the South Carolina delegation for their
unanimous support of this bill. I urge its passage by the House to
honor this outstanding South Carolinian and great American.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the
gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Crawford) that the House suspend the rules
and pass the bill, H.R. 2131.
The question was taken; and (two-thirds being in the affirmative) the
rules were suspended and the bill was passed.
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
____________________