[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 119 (Monday, July 16, 2018)]
[House]
[Pages H6222-H6223]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              JOHN HERVEY WHEELER UNITED STATES COURTHOUSE

  Mr. BARLETTA. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the 
bill (H.R. 3460) to designate the United States courthouse located at 
323 East Chapel Hill Street in Durham, North Carolina, as the ``John 
Hervey Wheeler United States Courthouse'', as amended.
  The Clerk read the title of the bill.
  The text of the bill is as follows:

                               H.R. 3460

       Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
     the United States of America in Congress assembled,

     SECTION 1. JOHN HERVEY WHEELER UNITED STATES COURTHOUSE.

       (a) Designation.--The United States courthouse located at 
     323 East Chapel Hill Street in Durham, North Carolina, shall 
     be known and designated as the ``John Hervey Wheeler United 
     States Courthouse'' during the period in which the facility 
     is used as a Federal courthouse.
       (b) References.--During the period in which the facility 
     referred to in subsection (a) is used as a Federal 
     courthouse, any reference in a law, map, regulation, 
     document, paper, or other record of the United States to the 
     United States courthouse referred to in subsection (a) shall 
     be deemed to be a reference to the ``John Hervey Wheeler 
     United States Courthouse''.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania (Mr. Barletta) and the gentlewoman from Nevada (Ms. Titus) 
each will control 20 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Pennsylvania.

                              {time}  1730


                             General Leave

  Mr. BARLETTA. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members 
have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include 
extraneous materials on H.R. 3460, as amended.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Pennsylvania?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. BARLETTA. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. 
H.R. 3460 would designate the United States courthouse located in 
Durham, North Carolina, as the John Hervey Wheeler United States 
Courthouse.
  Mr. Wheeler played a pivotal role in the civil rights movement. John 
Wheeler was a respected civil rights leader in Durham, North Carolina, 
successfully litigating school segregation cases in the 1940s.
  In 1961, President Kennedy appointed Mr. Wheeler to the United States 
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission where he worked alongside Vice 
President Johnson in drafting civil rights legislation.
  Mr. Wheeler also served as president of the Mechanics & Farmers Bank 
where he was able to continue his work on civil rights issues, making 
possible the purchase of homes, the acquisition of Federal loans, and a 
relaxation of racial barriers in North Carolina.
  Mr. Speaker, I think it is fitting to name the courthouse in Durham 
after him. I urge my colleagues to support this bill, and I reserve the 
balance of my time.
  Ms. TITUS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I, too, rise in support of H.R. 3460. This is the bill, 
as you heard, that would name the United States Federal courthouse 
located in downtown Durham, North Carolina, as the John Hervey Wheeler 
United States Courthouse.
  Mr. Wheeler was a prominent community leader. He was a bank president 
and he was a civil rights lawyer who helped transform the city of 
Durham over his long and impressive career. Clearly, it is appropriate 
to name this courthouse after him.
  I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from North 
Carolina (Mr. Butterfield) who brought us this legislation and can 
speak more personally about the qualities of Mr. Wheeler.
  Mr. BUTTERFIELD. Mr. Speaker, let me first thank the gentlewoman from 
Nevada (Ms. Titus) for her friendship, leadership, and for yielding me 
the time this afternoon. I also thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania 
(Mr. Barletta) as well.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of my bill, H.R. 3460, that 
seeks to name the United States courthouse located at 323 East Chapel 
Hill Street in Durham, North Carolina, as the John Hervey Wheeler 
United States Courthouse.
  This bill, Mr. Speaker, has the support from my friends in the North 
Carolina congressional delegation and the entire Durham community. It 
was favorably reported out of the Transportation and Infrastructure 
Committee several days ago.
  John Hervey Wheeler, Mr. Speaker, was a prominent African American 
bank president, civil rights lawyer, political activist, civic leader, 
educator, statesman, and philanthropist. He was a family friend as 
well.
  Mr. Wheeler was born on the campus of Kittrell College in Vance 
County, North Carolina, on New Year's Day in 1908, as the second child 
to the former Margaret Hervey and John Leonidas Wheeler.
  After the Wheeler family relocated to Atlanta, Georgia, John Wheeler 
attended high school at Morehouse Academy from 1921 to 1925, and then 
matriculated to Morehouse College from 1925 to 1929, where he graduated 
summa cum laude in June of 1929.
  After graduation, Mr. Wheeler moved to Durham where he began his 
career

[[Page H6223]]

with the Mechanics & Farmers Bank as a bank teller. He advanced through 
the company's ranks and in 1944, became executive vice president. Eight 
years later, Mr. Wheeler would become bank president. At the age of 44, 
he was the youngest African American bank president in the country.
  As president, Mr. Wheeler saw the bank grow from operating branches 
in two cities, Durham and Raleigh, to also having a branch in 
Charlotte. During his tenure the bank's assets grew from $5 million to 
$41 million.
  John Wheeler, Mr. Speaker, was instrumental in making loans to 
hundreds of families in North Carolina, enabling them to purchase their 
homes. He made loans to churches and businesses, loans they otherwise 
would not have been able to obtain because of discriminatory lending 
practices.
  John Wheeler was eager to become a lawyer. He enrolled in law school 
at the North Carolina College for Negroes, now North Carolina Central 
University, where in 1947 he was among the first law school graduates.
  John Wheeler became a thoughtful activist through his involvement 
known as the Durham Committee on Negro Affairs, a community-based civil 
and political organization founded in Durham in 1935. Mr. Wheeler began 
serving as chairman in 1957, a position he held until 1978. The 
organization continues today as the Durham Committee on the Affairs of 
Black People.
  During my entire time in Durham, Mr. Speaker, as a student at North 
Carolina Central University, John Wheeler was a titan of a community 
leader, well respected, and effective. On many occasions, he personally 
counseled me by providing advice that I recall to this day.
  It was through the Durham Committee on Negro Affairs that Attorney 
Wheeler and Attorney M. Hugh Thompson and Attorney Oliver Hill of 
Richmond, Virginia, challenged several North Carolina school boards by 
alleging they were failing to provide equal funding to African American 
schools. It was a constitutional challenge.
  In the case of Blue v. Durham Public School District filed on May 18, 
1949, Wheeler, Thompson, and Hill were successful in proving that the 
Durham Public School District was violating the 14th Amendment of the 
United States Constitution.
  The court entered its order and I have a copy with me today, Mr. 
Speaker. I will simply read one sentence:

       The net result of what has been done leaves Negro school 
     children at many disadvantages which must be overcome.

  The court ordered equal funding for the schools on January 26, 1951, 
in the very building we are naming today.
  Incidentally, Mr. Speaker, the State courthouse in Richmond, 
Virginia, is named for his cocounsel, Oliver Hill. In my home county of 
Wilson, also in 1949, Black residents employed Attorney Wheeler to 
represent them in a similar lawsuit because the Wilson County School 
Board refused to build any public schools in the rural portions of the 
county for African American children.
  Mr. Wheeler won that case as well, and because of the litigation, two 
consolidated schools were constructed. Thousands of African American 
children in Wilson County benefited by obtaining a high school 
education.
  Mr. Wheeler ultimately filed several school desegregation lawsuits 
before the end of the decade. In 1956, he and several other Durham 
attorneys, including future CORE chairman, Floyd B. McKissick, Sr., won 
the U.S. Supreme Court case of Frasier v. Board of Trustees of the 
University of North Carolina, which led to the first three African 
American undergraduates to gain admission to our State's flagship 
institution.
  In 1961, President Kennedy appointed John Wheeler to the President's 
Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity. In 1963, Mr. Wheeler became 
an incorporator of the North Carolina Fund, an ambitious antipoverty 
agency established by then-Governor Terry Sanford to help eradicate 
poverty. Mr. Wheeler joined the organization's board, and his bank 
became the repository for its accounts.
  In 1964, then-Governor Terry Sanford named John Wheeler as a delegate 
to the Democratic Party's national convention in Atlantic City, New 
Jersey. Mr. Wheeler was the first African American in North Carolina to 
be a convention delegate.
  That same year, Mr. Wheeler became the first African American 
President of the Southern Regional Council, a civil rights organization 
founded in 1944 and based in Atlanta, Georgia. In 1967, John Wheeler 
received an honorary doctorate from Morehouse College for his tireless 
leadership as a member of the school's board of trustees. He had 
previously received honorary doctorates from Shaw University in 
Raleigh, Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte, and Tuskegee 
University in Tuskegee, Alabama.
  In 1970, Mr. Wheeler was awarded an honorary doctorate from Duke 
University, and that same year received the Frank Porter Graham civil 
liberties award for his defense of freedom for all North Carolinians.
  In 1971, North Carolina Central University, my alma mater, also 
honored him with an honorary doctorate degree. On January 4, 1976, 
Morehouse College formally dedicated the John H. Wheeler Hall as the 
school's social sciences and business administration building.
  On December 25, Christmas Day, in 1935, Mr. Wheeler married the 
former Selena Lucille Warren, the daughter of Julia McCauley and Dr. 
Stanford L. Warren, a cofounder and one-time president of the Mechanics 
& Farmers Bank. They had two children, Julia Taylor and Warren Hervey 
Wheeler. Mr. Wheeler passed away 40 years ago on July 6, 1978, at the 
age of 70.
  Mr. Speaker, in closing, John Hervey Wheeler gave so much of himself 
to his community, State, and country. He accomplished more in his time 
on Earth than some could hope to accomplish in two lifetimes.
  It is for these reasons that I respectfully urge my colleagues to 
vote ``yes'' on H.R. 3460, to direct that the United States courthouse 
be named in his honor.
  Ms. TITUS. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague, Mr. Butterfield, for 
sharing with us that amazing life story.
  Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to support passage of this bill, and 
I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. BARLETTA. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the 
gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Barletta) that the House suspend the 
rules and pass the bill, H.R. 3460, as amended.
  The question was taken; and (two-thirds being in the affirmative) the 
rules were suspended and the bill, as amended, was passed.
  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.

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