[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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