[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 191 (Friday, November 17, 2023)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1116]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  HONORING THE LEGACY OF WYNONA LIPMAN

                                 ______
                                 

                       HON. DONALD M. PAYNE, JR.

                             of new jersey

                    in the house of representatives

                       Friday, November 17, 2023

  Mr. PAYNE. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize and honor a great 
trailblazer from my district, Wynona Lipman, on what would have been 
her 100th birthday. Born in 1923, Mrs. Lipman was the first African-
American woman to be elected to the New Jersey State Senate when she 
won her seat in 1971. She served the 29th Legislative District for 27 
years, the Senate's longest-serving member at the time of her death in 
1999.
  Before she was a political trailblazer, Mrs. Lipman was a teacher. 
She taught French at Morehouse College and tutored a famous civil 
rights advocate, Martin Luther King, Jr. She left that position to 
pursue a Ph.D. degree at Columbia University. During her time at 
Columbia, Mrs. Lipman earned a Fulbright fellowship to study at the 
Sorbonne in Paris for two years. When she returned, Mrs. Lipman 
finished her Ph.D. degree and eventually moved to Montclair, New 
Jersey, where she became an associate professor at Essex County 
College.
  In Montclair, Mrs. Lipman became active in local politics. In 1968, 
she won her first election to become an Essex County Board of Chosen 
Freeholder, where she became President of the Board in 1971. Then Mrs. 
Lipman ran for the New Jersey State Senate and defeated Republican 
Senator Milton Waldor by less than 1,000 votes out of 170,000 cast. 
During her 27 years in the State Senate, Mrs. Lipman was often the only 
woman serving there and worked diligently to protect the LGBTQ+ 
community and children on the Governor's Advisory Council on AIDS and 
Task Force on Child Abuse and Neglect.
  Mrs. Lipman's tireless efforts to serve her district earned her 
induction into the New Jersey's ``Women's Hall of Fame'' in 1998. 
Today, her legacy is supported throughout the area. There is the Wynona 
Lipman Ethnic Studies Center at Kean University, the Wynona Lipman 
Chairholder at the Center for American Women in Politics and Rutgers 
University, the Wynona Lipman Child Advocacy Center (known as Wynona's 
House) for abused children in Newark, and the future Wynona Lipman 
Courthouse in Essex County. Next week, there will be an exhibit titled 
``Stronger than Steel: The Wynona Lipman Story'' at the New Jersey 
Historical Society.
  Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues in the House of Representatives to 
join me in celebrating her life of public service and her legacy in New 
Jersey politics.

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