[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 146 (Friday, August 13, 2021)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E891-E892]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 ELECTRICAL ENGINEER WHO PIONEERED SUBMARINE SONAR SYSTEMS, COMMUNITY 
  LEADER AND ACTIVIST, VETERAN, PHOTOJOURNALIST, FAMILY PATIARCH, AND 
       FIRST BLACK ELECTED OFFICIAL IN ORANGE COUNTY, CALIFORNIA

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. SHEILA JACKSON LEE

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                        Friday, August 13, 2021

  Ms. JACKSON LEE. Madam Speaker, as a senior member of this body and 
the Committee on the Judiciary, as a witness to some of the 
revolutionary social and political changes in American life and 
society, and as a legislator dedicated to advancing public policies 
that improve the quality of life for all Americans and that make 
equality of opportunity and equal justice for all not just a virtue but 
a fact of American life, I rise to pay tribute to an unsung hero of the 
American Experiment, Jesse Frank Berry, who died at his home in 
Rockville, Maryland on Monday, August 9, 2021, at the age of 88.
  In these tumultuous days of crisis and challenge, Members of Congress 
know well, perhaps better than most, how blessed our nation is to have 
such exceptional men and women who will go on to become leaders in 
their local communities, states, and the nation in the areas of 
business, education, law, government, philanthropy, the arts and 
culture, and the military.
  We know this because we see them and benefit from their contributions 
every day as they serve the American people in our offices doing 
amazing work as congressional staff members.
  What produces such persons and inspires them to want to do what they 
do and to do it so well?
  Madam Speaker, as Occam's razor posits, the answer is pretty simple 
and straightforward; they come from all over the nation, and they are 
produced and nurtured and inspired by their first role-models and 
heroes: their mothers and fathers.
  The life of Jesse Frank Berry, the father of my Chief Counsel, 
illustrates this perfectly, and I want to share briefly with all 
Members

[[Page E892]]

his accomplishments and experiences that provided so much pride and 
motivation to his four children, five. grandchildren, three great-
grandchildren, his siblings, surviving relatives, friends and loved 
ones, and the thousands of persons he never met.
  Jesse Frank Berry was born on September 13, 1932, in Asheville, North 
Carolina, the first of the five children of Thomas and Eva Berry, 
descendants of South Carolina slaves and sharecroppers who survived 
daily indignities and injustices and nightly reigns of terror and 
violence.
  Jesse Berry's family was part of the historic ``Great Migration'' 
that saw millions of black Americans migrate from the de jure 
segregated rural South in search of greater economic opportunity and 
freedom in the urban North.
  The family of Jesse Berry, parents and siblings Dorothy, Doris, 
Thomas Leon, and Elmira, settled in on the east side of Cleveland, 
Ohio, in what is today the 11th Congressional District of Ohio, the 
district that sent Louis Stokes to the House of Representatives as 
Ohio's first African American congressman.
  While Jesse Berry's father provided for the family working as 
mechanic and handyman and his mother provided a loving home, Jesse took 
advantage of the opportunity to attend school beyond the elementary 
grades and excelled in mathematics, mechanical design, and drafting as 
a student at East Tech High School, the alma mater of another and more 
famous Jesse, the legendary Olympic champion Jesse Owens, who did as 
much as anyone to discredit on the world stage Adolf Hitler's false 
creed of white supremacy and his big lie that Aryans were the master 
race.
  After graduating from high school, Jesse Berry worked at a local 
factory in Cleveland for several years before being called to serve his 
country during the Korean War, where he served in the Signal Corps of 
the U.S. Army.
  In December 1953, Jesse Berry married Bonnie Agnew and to this union 
was born four children, sons Jeffrey Thomas, Gregory Alan, Michael 
Leonard, and daughter Bonnie Eileen, all of whom would later go on to 
graduate from college and lead productive and constructive lives as 
lawyers, professors and teachers, serviceman, health counselors, and 
entertainment industry entrepreneurs.
  In 1959, Jesse Berry and his wife Bonnie led what would soon be 
another great migration, heading west to California where Jesse had 
been accepted into the prestigious electrical engineering program at 
the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, which he was able 
to finance with the G.I. Bill benefits he earned for his active duty 
service in the U.S. Army.
  He would later earn a master's degree in electronic engineering from 
California State University at Long Beach.
  After graduating from USC in 1962, Jesse Berry began his career as an 
electronic engineer, designing submarine sonar systems that were vital 
in securing America's victory in the Cold War, working for several of 
the country's leading aerospace companies and defense contractors, 
including Hughes Aircraft, North American Rockwell, General Dynamics, 
and Honeywell.
  But while America was engaged in the Cold War on the international 
stage, domestically the demand of the Civil Rights Movement for a new 
social order of equal justice and opportunity for all was raging.
  As Bob Dylan put it so memorably in his immortal ``The Times They are 
a-Changin'':

     The line it is drawn
     The curse it is cast
     The slow one now
     Will later be fast
     As the present now
     Will later be past
     The order is rapidly fadin'
     And the first one now
     Will later be last
     For the times they are a-changin'

  Patriotic but ordinary Americans of goodwill, who deeply loved their 
country but harboring a passion for justice answered the call.
  And in that number was Jesse Berry, the electronic engineer and sonar 
systems expert, who was active in the local Urban League and civil 
rights groups.
  Because of his exceptional organizing and logistical skills, Jesse 
Berry was elected to serve as President of the NAACP for the Orange 
County, California chapter, where he spearheaded voting registration 
drives, educational symposia, awareness events, and consulted with 
civil rights leaders from across the state and around the country.
  In April 1968, violence and destruction swept many areas of the 
nation following the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, 
Jr., in Memphis, Tennessee, but the city of Santa Ana in Orange County, 
California, was left unscathed.
  That is due in no small measure to the wise counsel and guidance the 
heartbroken and anguished black residents of the city received from 
their respected leader, Jesse Berry, who organized a memorial service 
at the local municipal stadium attended by thousands who comported 
themselves with dignity out of respect and acceptance of Dr. King's 
philosophy of nonviolence.
  The following year Jesse Berry would make history becoming the first 
African American to win elective office in Orange County, California, 
securing a seat on the Santa Ana Board of Education.
  Throughout his life, Jesse Berry was the person that friends, 
neighbors, relatives, and persons who only knew him by reputation, went 
to for wisdom, advice, guidance, encouragement, or assistance.
  But despite the pressing demands on his time and for his attention, 
Jesse Berry always remembered he was a dad to four children, stressing 
the importance of a good education and instilling in them a love of 
learning, showing them how to solve story problems and helping them 
with their homework, teaching them to swim, and to play baseball and 
not to be judgmental but to treat all persons with respect and dignity.
  One of the things that was most dear to Jesse Berry was his love of 
nature and history; on cross-country trips back to visit relatives, he 
would often take detours and make side trips so his children could 
visit and experience the places and events that shape so much of their 
lives and instill in them a sense of wonder, awe, and appreciation.
  So it was not at all unusual for Jesse Berry to regard Gettysburg, 
Valley Forge, Yosemite's Half Dome or Yellowstone's Ol' Faithful, the 
Badlands of South Dakota, the Grand Canyon, Death Valley, the Petrified 
Forest, New Mexico's Carlsbad Caverns, Gettysburg, the Missouri 
Courthouse where the case of Dred Scott was decided, and United States 
Capitol as on the way from Los Angeles to Cleveland.
  And Jesse Berry delighted in photographing these events to chronicle 
the adventure and relive the good times with his friends and neighbors 
as they watched the slideshow on his projection screen that he was the 
first to own.
  Madam Speaker, the life of Jesse Frank Berry reflects so much the 
experiences of the ancestors of millions of persons of color in our 
great nation.
  Jesse Berry lived through 16 presidents, 5 wars, the Great Depression 
and the Great Recession of 2008, the era of Jim Crow and the Great 
Society, the transcendent presidencies of Bill Clinton and Barack 
Obama, the first black president, and the election of Kamala Harris, 
the first woman and person of color elected Vice-President of the 
United States.
  Jesse Berry knew the anger and resentment that comes naturally to one 
whose family has been refused accommodations at motel or service in a 
restaurant because of their race.
  Jesse Berry knew the pride of wearing the uniform of his country even 
though at the time he was denied many of the rights he was willing to 
risk his life to defend.
  He knew the sacrifice it took to become the first in his family to 
graduate from college and the satisfaction that comes with the 
realization of a longheld goal.
  Jesse Berry never lost faith in his country; instead, he worked to do 
his part to help it live up to the true meaning of its creed that all 
persons are created equal, and he passed that conviction and 
determination on to his children and everyone he touched during his 
remarkable nearly nine decade sojourn--on earth.
  Madam Speaker, like so many others stretching all the way back to 
Saul, Jesse Berry ran the great race, he finished the course, he kept 
the faith, and he has now gone on to his great reward.
  We can all find solace in the words of the philosopher Sophocles who 
said: One must wait until the evening to know how splendid the day has 
been.
  To Jesse's widow, Mazel Pernell, his siblings, children, relatives, 
neighbors, friends, and loves ones, but especially to his beloved 
grandchildren Samantha, Shyeita, Michael, Connor, and Jesse, and his 
great-grandchildren Alexis, Desmond, and Sydney, I hope it is a comfort 
to you that so many persons share your grief and are mourning the loss 
of a truly consequential life well lived.
  I ask the House to observe a moment of silence in memory of Jesse 
Frank Berry, who spent his life in service to his Lord, his family, his 
friends, communities, and to the nation.

                          ____________________