[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 85 (Tuesday, May 21, 2019)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E643-E644]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 CONGRESSIONAL BLACK CAUCUS: HONORING JUDGE DAMON J. KEITH, DISCUSSING 
                    ROLLBACK OF SAFETY NET PROGRAMS

                                 ______
                                 

                               speech of

                        HON. SHEILA JACKSON LEE

                                of texas

                    in the house of representatives

                          Monday, May 20, 2019

  Mr. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Speaker, I rise during this Special Order to pay 
tribute to the Honorable Judge Damon J. Keith, a pivotal

[[Page E644]]

civil rights leader and legal trailblazer that our country lost on 
April 28, 2019 at the age of 96.
  When Judge Damon J. Keith was nominated by President Lyndon B. 
Johnson in 1967 to serve as Judge of the United States District Court 
for the Eastern District of Michigan, it was at a time when there were 
very few African American federal judges.
  Judge Damon J. Keith said, ``I never had a black teacher. . . . There 
wasn't a black police officer above the rank of sergeant. There were no 
black judges. There were not black elected officials.''
  Judge Damon J. Keith's appointment to the U.S. District Court was the 
same year that Thurgood Marshall was nominated and confirmed to the 
Supreme Court Bench as an associate justice.
  When Judge Damon J. Keith was later nominated by President Jimmy 
Carter to serve on the federal court of appeals, he was the sixth 
African American appointed to serve on a U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
  The sixth.
  Judge Keith made a series of landmark decisions that changed the 
social and legal landscape of this country throughout his 52 years of 
service on the bench, including:
  Davis v. School District of City of Pontiac, 309 F. Supp. 734 (E.D. 
Mich. 1970), which ordered citywide buses to integrate and helped 
integrate Pontiac public schools.
  Judge Keith stood up to the KKK with this ruling and it became the 
first case to extend federal court-ordered integration to the North.
  Then, Judge Keith ruled that President Nixon and U.S. Attorney 
General John Mitchell did not have the right to wiretap in domestic 
security cases without a court order in United States v. United States 
District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, 407 U.S. 297 
(1972).
  That same year Judge Keith ruled in Garrett v. City of Hamtramck, 335 
F. Supp. 16 (E.D. Mich. 1971), that Hamtramck practiced so-called 
``Negro removal'' under the guise of urban renewal and ordered the city 
to build new public housing.
  In Stamps v. Detroit Edison Co., 365 F. Supp. 87 (E.D. 1973), Judge 
Keith ordered Detroit Edison to pay 4 million to black employees and 
start an affirmative action program in a historic job-discrimination 
case.
  Furthering integration of public spaces and jobs, in Baker v. City of 
Detroit, 483 F. Supp. 919 (E.D. 1979), Judge Keith ordered the Detroit 
Police Department to carry out Detroit Mayor, Coleman Young's plan to 
integrate.
  And in Detroit Free Press v. Ashcroft, 195 F. Supp. 2d 937 (E.D. 
2002), he upheld a lower court's decision prohibiting the Justice 
Department from barring the public and press from deportation hearings 
involving people suspected of supporting terrorism.
  Judge Keith did his job amid death threats and the obstacles of 
racial bigotry.
  Judge Keith's dedication to civil rights and civil liberties came 
from a life dealing with racial inequality as a solider and a young 
man.
  Judge Damon J. Keith was born July 4, 1922.
  Judge Keith was the grandson of slaves and the son of a Ford factory 
worker who made 5 dollars a day.
  Judge Keith was youngest of seven children and he was the first 
member of his family to earn a college degree.
  Once Judge Keith graduated from college during World War II in 1943, 
he enlisted in a segregated U.S. Army.
  Judge Keith recalled the three years he spent in the Quartermaster 
Corps during World War II in Europe as ``absolutely degrading,'' partly 
because the ``all-colored'' unit did not have a single black officer.
  After Judge Keith was discharged in 1946 as a sergeant, he returned 
home to experience White German soldiers riding in the front seats of 
buses and dining in restaurants where he was not welcome.
  Judge Keith's experience seeing African American soldiers being 
treated with less respect than White German prisoners of war, made him 
vow to fight for civil rights here at home.
  So, Judge Keith attended and graduated from Howard University Law 
School with his JD in 1949.
  While in law school, Judge Keith helped research civil rights cases, 
participated in mock trials and watched rising legal stars, like 
Thurgood Marshall, the NAACP's chief legal counsel, practice his legal 
arguments and argue cases before the U.S. Supreme Court.
  After Judge Keith graduated law school in 1949, he went on to not 
only pass the bar but found one of the first Black law firms in Detroit 
city.
  Judge Keith was a man dedicated to change and as he climbed the legal 
ranks, Judge Keith brought women and minorities up with him, not just 
African-Americans but also Hispanics and Asians.
  Judge Keith hired more minorities law clerks than any other federal 
judge and encouraged those he helped to do the same for other young 
minorities.
  But, not only should Judge Keith be rewarded for what he has done as 
judge, but for what he has done as a man.
  Judge Keith became the surrogate father and guardian for Willie 
Horton, guiding the young athlete from a troubled neighborhood into 
manhood and to stardom with the Detroit Tigers.
  It was also Judge Keith who came to Rosa Parks's rescue in 1994 when 
the Civil Rights icon had been attacked by a burglar in her Detroit 
home.
  Judge Keith helped her find a safe place to live in the aftermath.
  Judge Keith's eldest daughter, Cecile Keith, said Saturdays was spent 
with their father, who would take them to dance classes, music lessons, 
and choir rehearsals, and afterward they would go out for hamburger and 
French fries.
  Judge Keith took his children to the movies, Tiger games, played ball 
in their backyard, and he taught them how to ride bikes.
  Judge Keith was more than a civil rights activist and he was more 
than a trailblazer.
  Judge Keith was also a father and husband.
  Judge Keith was a man dedicated to his wife, family, and to his 
community.
  Judge Keith has always been a beacon of justice and we are a better 
country because of his work and are forever in his debt.

                          ____________________