[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 146 (Tuesday, October 6, 2015)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1431-E1432]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




RECOGNIZING MELANIE L. CAMPBELL FOR 20 YEARS OF SERVICE AND LEADERSHIP 
         AT THE NATIONAL COALITION ON BLACK CIVIC PARTICIPATION

                                 ______
                                 

                       HON. ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON

                      of the district of columbia

                    in the house of representatives

                        Tuesday, October 6, 2015

  Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I rise to ask the House of Representatives 
to join me in recognizing Melanie L. Campbell, President and CEO of the 
National Coalition on Black Civic Participation (the National 
Coalition) for her exemplary leadership to expand and preserve civil, 
human and women's rights in the United States. This year marks the 20th 
year Ms. Campbell has led the National Coalition, which is composed of 
organizations that represent some 40 million people across our great 
nation. Campbell is well known for her unique ability to build powerful 
coalitions and networks that bring diverse people together for the 
common good.
  The National Coalition was founded nearly 40 years ago on May 5, 1976 
in the District of Columbia by great heroes and sheroes of the Civil 
Rights Movement, including the late Dr. Dorothy Irene Height, Norman 
Hill, the late Maynard Jackson, Rev. Dr. Joseph E. Lowery, William 
``Bill'' Lucy, Eddie Williams and many others--all of whom mentored 
Campbell to embrace servant leadership as a way of life in her journey 
in the fight for justice for all people.
  Melanie Campbell is a nationally recognized expert in civic 
engagement, voting rights, women's rights and youth empowerment, and 
has led many successful coalition-based campaigns that have empowered 
thousands of African Americans to have a voice in our representative 
democracy including: 1) the Unity Voter Empowerment Campaign helping 
increase Black voter participation to historic records over the past 
decade; 2) the Unity Diaspora Census Campaigns helping reduce the 
undercount of the Black population in 2000 and 2010; and 3) organizing 
the ReBuild Hope NOW Coalition in 2005 to assist survivors of 
Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in rebuilding their lives in the Gulf Coast 
Region.
  Ms. Campbell acknowledges that one of her most rewarding 
accomplishments at the National Coalition has been creating an 
innovative, youth-led civic leadership development program, Black Youth 
Vote, which was launched April 4, 1996, under the banner, ``the ballot, 
not the bullet'' in commemoration of the assassination of Dr. Martin 
Luther King, Jr.
  Campbell is a passionate advocate for women's rights and serves as 
convener of Black Women's Roundtable (BWR), an intergenerational public 
policy and organizing network of the National Coalition. Under her 
leadership, BMR empowers thousands of women and girls annually with 
tools and resources to live a higher quality of life. BWR is focused on 
fighting for income equality for women and a living wage job for all 
Americans.
  In 2014, Campbell led a Black Women's Roundtable delegation to 
challenge the NFL to

[[Page E1432]]

address domestic violence and diversity in the league; and organized 
prayer vigils on Capitol Hill, with the National African American 
Clergy Network, to pray for Congress to confirm Loretta Lynch to become 
the first African American woman and second woman in history to serve 
as the U.S. Attorney General of the United States.
  Most recently, she established the Black Youth Vote/Gathering of 
Black Men & Boys Initiative which held a Capitol Hill day on April, 23, 
2015, with over 200 young men and boys coming together to learn how the 
public policy process works and meeting their Congressional 
representatives from both parties to share their concerns that are 
impacting their lives. For her black male initiatives work, she was 
recently appointed to the My Brothers' Keeper Alliance Advisory Council 
supported by President Obama.
  Campbell is an active member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority and 
several other prominent national organizations. She is a native of 
Mims, Florida and attributes her passion for civil rights and social 
justice to her parents, Mrs. Janet Campbell and the late Isaac 
Campbell, Sr., who instilled in her a strong faith in God and the 
understanding that ``helping others is the rent we pay for being 
born.''
  Melanie L. Campbell has spent her entire professional life as a 
mentor and a role model for countless women and youth in the District 
of Columbia, the nation and the world.
  Mr. Speaker, I ask the House of Representatives to join me in 
saluting Melanie L. Campbell for her 20 years of service to our nation 
as a non-profit leader at the National Coalition, and for being a great 
humanitarian and outstanding citizen of the United States of America.

                          ____________________