[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 70 (Tuesday, April 25, 2017)]
[House]
[Page H2818]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        REMEMBERING RUBY ARNOLD

  (Mr. CLEAVER asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. CLEAVER. Mr. Speaker, while it is widely known that Horace 
Peterson of Kansas City was the visionary and sole founder of the Black 
Archives of Mid-America, it is little known who saved the institution 
from vanishing years later.
  During the spring of 1998, Ruby Arnold, a diehard board member, began 
a personal crusade to secure a new home for the organization she held 
dear. One Monday morning, during a heavy rainstorm, Ruby Arnold 
appeared at the front desk of the 29th floor of city hall.
  The security guard asked her if she had an appointment with anyone in 
particular. ``I don't have an appointment,'' she said, ``but I have 
come to see Mayor Emanuel Cleaver.''
  The assistant to the mayor replied: I'm sorry, but the mayor is not 
in.
  A week later, Ruby came by again to see the mayor and waited two 
hours for an appointment that she did not have to discuss a home for 
the Black Archives.
  And then, at a public event the next week, she asked again: Mayor, 
have you found a place for the Black Archives?
  Ruby Arnold died before the opening of the new archives in the summer 
of 2010, but former mayor, Emanuel Cleaver, now the U.S. Representative 
from the Fifth District, said this location for the Black Archives was 
not secured by wishing or hoping but by the merciful harassment I 
received from one determined Ruby Arnold. May God bless her remarkable 
spirit.

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