[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 156 (Tuesday, September 26, 2023)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E889]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               CELEBRATING THE WORK OF DR. CLARENCE JONES

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. RITCHIE TORRES

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                      Tuesday, September 26, 2023

  Mr. TORRES of New York. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to celebrate Dr. 
Clarence Jones' work on the 60th anniversary of the March on 
Washington.
  Sixty years ago, those words were spoken by Dr. Martin Luther King 
but written by Dr. Clarence Jones, who lived in the Bronx, and in 
Riverdale, in the fateful year of 1963. The members of the Bronx family 
have gathered here today to celebrate not only a great American, but 
one of the greatest. We're here to celebrate a man who labored and 
loitered behind the scenes and behind the dream for the greatest cause 
in American history. The cause of equal rights, equal justice, and 
equal protection under the law.
  As a lawyer, Clarence Jones not only practiced law, he transformed 
it. As a civil rights leader, Clarence Jones not only had a dream, he 
realized it and by the grace of God, he has lived to see it.
  We are in a room full of people of every color and every creed. Black 
and white, Latino and Asian, Jews, Christians, and Muslims. We are 
collectively the realization of Dr. Jones' dream. Our unity is the 
culmination of his life's work. The legacy of Dr. King and Dr. Jones 
achieved nothing less than the liberation of the people and the 
reconstruction of a Nation. America has lived through two 
reconstructions and its history. Whereas the first reconstruction 
largely failed in the hands of Jim Crow. The second reconstruction, I 
believe, has largely succeeded on the strength of the civil rights 
movement. In spite of all the challenges confronting America, despite 
the racism that persists even in our own time, there can be no denying 
how far we have come as a country. How much we have overcome as a 
people and how high Dr. Jones and Dr. King have lifted us all.
  And if anyone has any doubts about the moral magnitude of what has 
been achieved in these past 60 years, look no further than our own 
city. For the first time in history, the Speaker of the New York City 
Council, the Speaker of the New York State Assembly, and the future 
Speaker of the United States House of Representatives are all African 
American. For the first time in history, the mayors of America's four 
largest cities, including New York, are all African American. There are 
1000s of elected officials, like myself, of all races and religions who 
stand firmly on the shoulders of moral giants like Dr. King and Dr. 
Jones. We owe these giants a debt that we can never repay, but it is a 
debt that we must never forget. Dr. Clarence Jones was a counsel and 
close confidant of Dr. Martin Luther King. When Dr. King was jailed in 
Birmingham, Alabama for protesting segregation, it was Clarence Jones 
who visited Dr. King in jail twice a day. And it was Clarence Jones who 
smuggled out Dr. King's famous Letter from a Birmingham Jail. As a 
Riverdale resident, Dr. Jones played a pivotal role in co-organizing 
America's greatest March and in co-writing America's greatest speech. 
Not only did he reside in Riverdale in 1963, he arranged for Dr. King 
to move into his Riverdale home in the lead up to the March on 
Washington and the I Have a Dream speech. The Riverdale home of Dr. 
Jones came to be known as Dr. King's quote, ``Command Post North.'' Dr. 
Martin Luther King and Dr. Clarence Jones were both American 
revolutionaries in 1963. The most powerful revolutions in history are 
not only those that change the nature of an economy or the nature of 
technology. The revolutions that ultimately matter most are those that 
changed the hearts and minds of a people.
  Dr. King and Dr. Jones inspired a revolution where it mattered most 
in the very soul of America. That revolution of the American soul 
remains with us 60 years later. Clarence Jones remains with us 60 years 
later. And as one of the few living members of Dr. King's innermost 
circle, Clarence Jones has been described as the last of the lions. At 
age 92, Dr. Jones shows no signs of retiring from his lifelong struggle 
for social justice. He presently serves as the chair of a non-for-
profit, known as Spill the Honey, which is dedicated to building 
bridges between the black community and the Jewish community. Dr. Jones 
is the product of the civil rights movement that inspired powerful 
moments of black Jewish solidarity. The image of Dr. Martin Luther 
King, and Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, marching for voting rights all 
the way from Selma to Montgomery. These two men of faith in the words 
of Rabbi Heschel ``were praying with their feet.'' There were Jewish 
Americans and African Americans who not only fought together, but also 
died together for the cause of civil rights. Andrew Goodman, Michael 
Schwerner, James Cheney, all were murdered in the Mississippi Burning. 
The least we can do is honor their memory with unity in our own time. 
The moral lesson of history is that we are all in this together. What 
matters more than the particulars of our race and religion. What 
matters more than the details of our color and creed is something 
universal, our common humanity. Upholding that common humanity has been 
the life work of Clarence Jones.
  Dr. King famously said, ``Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice 
everywhere''. Bearing those words in mind, a decade ago, I went to Yad 
Vashem the Holocaust memorial in Israel. I came across an unforgettable 
quote that has remained with me ever since. Quote, ``First the Nazis 
came from the socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a 
socialist. Then they came to the trade unions, and l did not speak out 
because I was not a trade unionist. And then they came for the Jews, 
and I did not speak up because I was not a Jew. And then they came from 
me, and there was no one left to speak for me.'' Let us never forget 
that we are all in this together. That we are all bound together by 
shared humanity. That we are all equal creations in the image of God. 
There is no one in America who knows the self-evident truth more deeply 
in his mind, feels it more deeply in the soul, and who has lived it 
more faithfully in his life for nearly a century than Clarence Jones. 
So on behalf of the people of the Bronx, I have the district pleasure 
of honoring Dr. Jones' roots in Riverdale, his role in America's 
greatest March, America's greatest speech, and America's greatest moral 
revolution and reconstruction.

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