[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 39 (Thursday, February 27, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1234-S1235]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 SENATE CONCURRENT RESOLUTION 37--HONORING THE LIFE AND WORK OF LOUIS 
LORENZO REDDING, WHOSE LIFELONG DEDICATION TO CIVIL RIGHTS AND SERVICE 
            STAND AS AN EXAMPLE OF LEADERSHIP FOR ALL PEOPLE

  Mr. COONS (for himself, Mr. Rubio, and Mr. Carper) submitted the 
following concurrent resolution; which was referred to the Committee on 
the Judiciary:

                            S. Con. Res. 37

       Whereas Louis Lorenzo Redding (referred to in this preamble 
     as ``Louis L. Redding'') was born on October 25, 1901, in 
     Alexandria, Virginia, the eldest of 5 children born to Lewis 
     Alfred and Mary Ann Holmes Redding;
       Whereas Louis L. Redding was an educator, attorney, and 
     lifelong activist who worked on civil rights and educational 
     issues;
       Whereas Louis L. Redding graduated from Howard High School 
     in 1919, which, at that time, was the only public high school 
     for African-American students in Delaware;
       Whereas Louis L. Redding received a bachelor's degree from 
     Brown University in 1923;
       Whereas, while at Brown University, Louis L. Redding and 7 
     other men established a chapter of the Alpha Phi Alpha 
     fraternity in Providence, Rhode Island;
       Whereas, in 1923, Louis L. Redding was the first African 
     American awarded the prestigious William Gaston Prize for 
     excellence in oratory and, as a result, delivered a 
     commencement speech at Brown University;
       Whereas Louis L. Redding became an English instructor and 
     the vice principal of Fessenden Academy outside of Ocala, 
     Florida, the oldest continuously operated school originally 
     for African-American students in Florida;
       Whereas Louis L. Redding left Fessenden Academy to teach 
     English in the high school division of Morehouse College, a 
     historically Black college in Atlanta, Georgia;
       Whereas, after 2 years of teaching, Louis L. Redding 
     enrolled in Harvard Law School in 1925;
       Whereas, in 1926, as a law student at Harvard Law School, 
     Louis L. Redding was ejected from the Wilmington, Delaware, 
     municipal court while protesting segregation of the 
     courtroom;
       Whereas that municipal court was the first court in 
     Wilmington, Delaware, to desegregate its gallery;
       Whereas Louis L. Redding graduated from Harvard Law School 
     in 1928 as the only African American in a class of about 200 
     students;

[[Page S1235]]

       Whereas, in 1929, Louis L. Redding became the first African 
     American to pass the Delaware bar;
       Whereas Louis L. Redding remained the only African-American 
     lawyer in Delaware for 26 years;
       Whereas, in 1949, Louis L. Redding was admitted to the 
     Delaware Bar Association, an organization from which Louis L. 
     Redding had been excluded for 20 years after having passed 
     the Delaware bar;
       Whereas, in 1950, Louis L. Redding and Jack Greenberg, a 
     lawyer for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, 
     filed the case of Parker v. University of Delaware to protest 
     the segregated college system in Delaware;
       Whereas, in August 1950, Chancellor Collins Seitz ruled in 
     Parker v. University of Delaware, 75 A.2d 225 (Del. Ch. 
     1950), that, under Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896), 
     the State of Delaware violated the Constitution of the United 
     States by offering a separate but not equal education in the 
     State college and university system;
       Whereas, in 1951, Louis L. Redding and Jack Greenberg 
     filed--
       (1) Belton v. Gebhart, a case that concerned the 
     desegregation of high schools; and
       (2) Bulah v. Gebhart, a case that concerned the 
     desegregation of elementary schools;
       Whereas, in 1952, the Belton and Bulah cases were 
     consolidated in the Delaware Court of Chancery, where, in 
     Belton v. Gebhart, 87 A.2d 862 (Del. Ch. 1952), Chancellor 
     Collins Seitz ordered the Delaware State Board of Education 
     to open all schools in Delaware to African Americans;
       Whereas the Delaware State Board of Education appealed the 
     decision of Chancellor Collins Seitz to the Supreme Court of 
     Delaware, which upheld the decision of the Chancellor in 
     Gebhart v. Belton, 91 A.2d 137 (Del. 1952);
       Whereas the case then came before the Supreme Court of the 
     United States on a writ of certiorari to the Supreme Court of 
     Delaware;
       Whereas Louis L. Redding and Jack Greenberg argued the case 
     alongside Thurgood Marshall, the first African-American 
     Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, as the 
     last of a group of 5 school desegregation cases heard and 
     decided by the Supreme Court of the United States in Brown v. 
     Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (1954), and 
     Bolling v. Sharpe, 347 U.S. 497 (1954);
       Whereas, on May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court of the United 
     States held in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 
     U.S. 483 (1954), that separate educational facilities for 
     racial minorities violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 
     14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, thus 
     holding that school segregation was unconstitutional;
       Whereas, on February 21, 1961, Louis L. Redding argued to 
     the Supreme Court of the United States in the case of Burton 
     v. Wilmington Parking Authority that a private company with a 
     relationship to a government agency was in violation of the 
     Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the 
     Constitution of the United States if the private company 
     refused to provide service to a customer on the basis of 
     race;
       Whereas, in April 1961, the Supreme Court of the United 
     States established the principle of State action in Burton v. 
     Wilmington Parking Authority, 365 U.S. 715 (1961), and ruled 
     that a private entity may not discriminate on the basis of 
     race if the State has approved, encouraged, or facilitated 
     the relevant private conduct;
       Whereas, in 1965, Louis L. Redding became a public defender 
     for the State of Delaware and fought for the rights of poor 
     clients for nearly 20 years thereafter;
       Whereas, in 1984, Louis L. Redding retired after 55 years 
     of practicing law;
       Whereas Louis L. Redding was a member of many national 
     organizations, including--
       (1) the National Bar Association;
       (2) the National Association for the Advancement of Colored 
     People;
       (3) the National Lawyers Guild; and
       (4) the Emergency Civil Liberties Committee;
       Whereas Louis L. Redding was awarded the Martin Luther 
     King, Jr. Memorial Award by the National Education 
     Association and an honorary Doctor of Law degree from Brown 
     University;
       Whereas the University of Delaware established the Louis L. 
     Redding Chair for the Study of Law and Public Policy in the 
     School of Education;
       Whereas Pulitzer Prize winning author Richard Kluger 
     described Louis L. Redding as a man who fought, largely 
     alone, for the civil rights and liberties of Black 
     Delawareans;
       Whereas former Secretary of Transportation William T. 
     Coleman, Jr., stated that the giants of the civil rights 
     movement were Houston Hastings, Louis L. Redding, and 
     Thurgood Marshall;
       Whereas, on September 29, 1998, Louis L. Redding died at 
     the age of 96 in Lima, Pennsylvania;
       Whereas Louis L. Redding broke down barriers and paved the 
     way for countless African-American lawyers to follow in his 
     footsteps, including--
       (1) Theophilus Nix, Sr., the second African American to 
     pass the Delaware bar exam;
       (2) Joshua W. Martin III, the first African-American 
     president of the Delaware Bar Association;
       (3) Frank H. Hollis, the first African-American attorney to 
     represent corporate clients in Delaware;
       (4) Paulette Sullivan Moore, the first African-American 
     woman to pass the Delaware bar exam;
       (5) Leonard L. Williams, the second African-American judge 
     in Delaware;
       (6) Haile L. Alford, the first African-American female 
     judge in Delaware;
       (7) Arlene Coppadge, the first African-American female 
     judge appointed to the Delaware Family Court;
       (8) Gregory M. Sleet, the first African American to be 
     appointed as the United States Attorney for the District of 
     Delaware and the first African-American judge to serve on the 
     United States District Court for the District of Delaware;
       (9) Alex J. Smalls, the first African-American chief judge 
     of the Delaware Court of Common Pleas; and
       (10) Tamika Montgomery-Reeves, the first African-American 
     Vice Chancellor of the Delaware Court of Chancery and the 
     first African-American justice to serve on the Supreme Court 
     of Delaware; and
       Whereas Louis L. Redding is remembered as an individual who 
     figured prominently in the struggle for desegregation and as 
     a lawyer who never lost a desegregation case: Now, therefore, 
     be it
       Resolved by the Senate (the House of Representatives 
     concurring), That Congress honors the life and work of Louis 
     Lorenzo Redding, a civil servant whose lifelong dedication to 
     justice and equality stand as an outstanding example of 
     leadership for all people.

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