[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 25 (Tuesday, February 8, 2022)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E127]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 HONORING THE LIFE OF EDGAR STUART CAHN

                                 ______
                                 

                       HON. ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON

                      of the district of columbia

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, February 8, 2022

  Ms. NORTON. Madam Speaker, I rise today to ask the House of 
Representatives to join me in celebrating the life of Dr. Edgar Stuart 
Cahn, who passed away at 86 years of age on January 23, 2022, in 
Bethesda, Maryland.
  Edgar Stuart Cahn was born on March 23, 1935, and was raised in an 
activist household in New York. While earning his undergraduate degree 
at Swarthmore College, Edgar met and fell in love with fellow student 
Jean Camper, forming a partnership that would eventually spur 
substantial social, political and legal change for the benefit of our 
country's most vulnerable. They married in New York, because, at the 
time, interracial marriage was illegal in Jean's home state of 
Maryland.
  Edgar and Jean both attended Yale Law School, where I met them as a 
fellow student. Following graduation, they moved to the District of 
Columbia in 1963, with Jean working as a legal advisor at the 
Department of State and Edgar as Special Assistant to and speechwriter 
for Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy. They would later work together 
in the Office of Economic Opportunity, where they, along with Sargent 
Shriver, established a first-of-its-kind federally funded program that 
provided legal aid to low-income Americans. This groundbreaking 
initiative, the predecessor to the Legal Services Corporation, is 
widely acknowledged as setting a blueprint for legal services and 
catalyzing what was then the burgeoning field of public interest law.
  Edgar next undertook a two-year campaign organizing Native American 
leaders in an effort that led to the end of the official federal policy 
of terminating Native American tribes, and, with his book Our Brother's 
Keeper: The Indian in White America, a classic indictment of America's 
treatment of Native Americans, to enactment of Public Law 93-638, the 
Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act.
  Edgar and Jean founded the Antioch School of Law, the predecessor to 
the University of the District of Columbia David A. Clarke School of 
Law. He served as a member of the UDC law faculty until near the end of 
his life.
  Edgar was a visionary in strategies to alleviate poverty, a pioneer 
in clinical legal education and a dear friend. He led with an 
unwavering focus to help the most vulnerable among us. He was equally 
beloved for his kindness, and he will be greatly missed.
  Madam Speaker, again, I ask the House of Representatives to join me 
in honoring the incredible life and legacy of Dr. Edgar Stuart Cahn.

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