[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 14 (Monday, January 25, 2021)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E64]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




   REMARKS ON TERRI FREEMAN LEAVING THE NATIONAL CIVIL RIGHTS MUSEUM

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                            HON. STEVE COHEN

                              of tennessee

                    in the house of representatives

                        Monday, January 25, 2021

  Mr. COHEN. Madam Speaker, I rise today to bid a reluctant farewell to 
Terri Lee Freeman, who for the past six years has served as President 
of the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis. Ms. Freeman has done an 
exceptional job leading the nation's premiere Civil Rights museum, 
located in the Lorraine Motel where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was 
assassinated in 1968. During her tenure, Ms. Freeman organized the 50th 
anniversary of that seminal event in American history--``MLK50--Where 
Do We Go From Here?''--featuring such national figures as our late 
Congressional colleague, John Lewis; the Reverend Jesse Jackson, former 
Polish President and 1983 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Lech Walesa; the 
Reverend William Barber of the Poor People's Campaign, and many others 
who traveled from around the world to spend time in our showcase 
institution. In her six years, she saw the museum's budget double to 
$9.7 million while overseeing a staff of 50 and an increased physical 
footprint. She also helped affiliate the museum with the Smithsonian 
Institution and its traveling exhibits. Also while at the museum, she 
began ``Unpacking Racism in Action,'' a series of community dialogues 
aimed at confronting implicit and structural bias. Last year, she was 
named ``Memphian of the Year'' by Memphis Magazine. Before moving to 
Memphis, she was president of what is now the Greater Washington 
Community Foundation. In her 18 years with that organization, she 
increased the organization's assets from $52 million in 1996 to more 
than $350 million in 2014. A proven leader, Ms. Freeman was a 2016 
graduate of Leadership Memphis and served on the boards of the 
Community Foundation of Greater Memphis, the New Memphis Institute and 
the Memphis Convention and Visitors Bureau, as well as being a member 
of the Tennessee Educational Equity Coalition Steering Committee. Born 
in Chicago, Ms. Freeman is a graduate of Hamtramck High School (1977) 
and the University of Dayton (1981 through 1983) and received a 
Master's degree in organizational communications from Howard 
University. Ms. Freeman is married to Dr. Bowyer G. Freeman, senior 
pastor of the New Saint Mark Baptist Church in Baltimore, and the 
mother of three grown daughters. I wish Ms. Freeman every success in 
her new post as executive director of the Reginald Lewis Museum of 
African American History and Culture in Baltimore. I'm pleased to read 
that Ms. Freeman will always consider herself an ``adopted child'' of 
our city where her work and dedication will remain her lasting legacy.

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