[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 34 (Monday, February 26, 2024)]
[Senate]
[Pages S979-S981]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                          Black History Month

  Mr. CASEY. Madam President, I am honored to rise today on the last 
couple of days of Black History Month to talk about a program we have 
had since 2007 in our office. This is a time for us to reflect, in our 
State, upon the Black Pennsylvanians who have led our communities in 
years past and who continue to honor us with the trailblazing work that 
they do throughout their communities.

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  This year, I again have the privilege of honoring several 
Pennsylvanians as part of my Senate office's Black History Month 
celebration. Our honorees this year are Edgar and Barbara Farmer, who 
reside in State College, PA; Loretta Claiborne of York, PA; Donta Green 
of Pittsburgh, PA; and Lurline Jones of Philadelphia, PA.
  The theme of this year's celebration is ``The Voices Empowering 
Generational Change.'' I think all of us would agree that change comes 
with great difficulty, and we know that when we honor these 
individuals, we honor Pennsylvanians, year after year, who have 
demonstrated the courage that has enabled others to follow them and to 
continue their work for change. It is especially important this year 
that we honor those with the courage to take that first difficult step 
to create change.
  This Black History Month, I am grateful for the opportunity to pay 
tribute to several trailblazing Pennsylvanians who sparked change and, 
by doing that, make it possible for later generations to pursue that 
same powerful change. So I will just give a brief biographical sketch 
of each of our honorees for the Senate to hear about.
  Loretta Claiborne, as I mentioned, is from York, PA. Loretta is a 
lifelong resident of York. She is a speaker, an athlete, and, above 
all, an advocate for people with disabilities. She was born in the 
middle of seven children to a low-income, single-parent family. She was 
partially blind and with an intellectual disability at her birth. She 
was unable to speak or run until she was 4 years old. But--you know 
what--since that age, she hasn't stopped running, having completed 26 
marathons--that is 26 more than I have completed--twice placing her in 
the top 100 women in the Boston Marathon. She has won dozens of medals 
at the Special Olympics World Summer Games. She introduced President 
Clinton at the 1995 Special Olympics Summer Games. Loretta has been 
inducted into the Women in Sports Hall of Fame and the Special Olympics 
Pennsylvania Hall of Fame.
  Loretta is a lifelong learner, communicating in four languages, 
including American Sign Language, and has received honorary doctoral 
degrees from Villanova University, Quinnipiac University, and York 
College--two of those three institutions in Pennsylvania.
  More than a learner, Loretta is also a teacher, having given a TED 
talk on intellectual disabilities and speaking frequently about her 
story, including twice on the Oprah Winfrey Show.
  She tells her story not to promote herself but to teach others that 
people with disabilities are equal to others. Here is something she 
said:

       I figured if my story could change a person's mind about 
     another person, or especially a child's mind about another 
     child, then it was the right thing to do.

  Loretta's story is all the more remarkable given that she was born at 
a time when a person with a disability was likely to be placed in an 
institution. Due to her efforts and others like her, people with 
disabilities today go to school, they go to work, and they are members 
of sports teams around the world.
  Loretta is a trailblazer for disability civil rights, working to 
ensure that people with disabilities can grow, live, and continue to 
contribute to their communities as full members, sharing their own 
extraordinary gifts.
  Our second honoree is Donta Green, from Pittsburgh. He is a mentor, 
coach, and widely respected community leader in Pittsburgh who brings 
excellence to all that he does. He is among the next generation of 
community leaders helping young men to reach for the future and working 
to empower others to take the first steps toward a better life.
  As a coach for the Westinghouse Bulldogs, Donta took over a 
struggling football program and built it into a winner, even taking the 
Bulldogs to the State title game in both 2022 and 2023. As a coach, he 
is not just the architect of a football program but a molder and 
teacher of young men, helping them not only achieve on the field but 
also to translate their success off the field as well.
  Donta also serves as the executive director of the Trade Institute of 
Pittsburgh--known by the acronym T-I-P, or TIP--which seeks to empower 
men and women with significant barriers to employment by providing them 
skills training and opportunities for career advancement. The Training 
Institute of Pittsburgh offers tuition-free trade programs such as 
masonry and carpentry, as well as related life skills such as financial 
and math literacy, resume and interview coaching, driver's license 
prep, and one-on-one life coaching.
  Many of the students at TIP are formerly incarcerated individuals 
trying to make the difficult transition to life after prison. TIP does 
remarkable work helping them to overcome the societal biases and 
barriers that many of these Americans face. So many of these 
individuals are successful, achieving an employment rate of 94 percent 
among individuals who complete the program.
  TIP also runs a workforce housing program that matches homeless 
students with a Training Institute of Pittsburgh alum who will work 
one-on-one with them until their lives and income are ready for 
independent living.
  Our third honoree is Lurline Jones. Lurline is yet another coach or 
involved in athletics, as several of our honorees are. Lurline is from 
Philadelphia, as I mentioned. She is a teacher, a mentor, and a 
basketball coach with more than five decades of coaching experience 
within the school district of Philadelphia, where she recently retired 
as the head basketball coach of the Martin Luther King High School. 
Since her coaching career began, more than 300 of Lurline's student 
athletes have gone on to college on athletic scholarships, and 3 have 
played in the WNBA.

  Lurline also cofounded the Developmental Basketball League, a 
nonprofit that helps girls and boys hone their fundamental basketball 
skills, and she has been doing this for nearly 50 years.
  As impressive as her coaching career has been, Lurline is the first 
to tell you that it is not just about sports. ``These kids are my 
kids,'' she says. ``They know I'm teaching them more than how to play 
basketball.''
  Lurline credits her mother, Mary Nixon, a domestic worker who grew up 
on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, for instilling in her the spirit of 
an activist. Her mother raised Lurline in the Brewerytown section of 
North Philadelphia.
  After leaving home for Morgan State College in Baltimore, which is 
now known as Morgan State University, Lurline Jones experienced legal 
segregation for the first time, spurring her to get involved in the 
civil rights movement, which landed her and hundreds of other Morgan 
students at that time in jail after protesting the segregation policy 
at a nearby movie theater.
  Lurline was involved in fighting against gender disparities in 
athletics as well. As a high school player at Philadelphia's William 
Penn High School for Girls, she was denied a chance to play varsity 
basketball because the school did not field a team, spurring her to 
become a lifelong advocate for the rights of women athletes.
  At the age of 80, Lurline's energy and enthusiasm are as strong as 
ever. Here is what she says:

       I want to give these kids a chance to succeed in life. I 
     feel extremely blessed to still have the opportunity to make 
     an impact and pay it forward.

  Finally, Madam President, our fourth and fifth honorees are Edgar and 
Barbara Farmer, as I mentioned, from State College, PA, the home of 
Penn State. Edgar and Barbara are longtime educators and community 
pillars in the State College community. They fought for years for 
progress on issues such as education and diversity.
  Barbara Farmer is a retired educator who taught business classes in 
North Carolina and Virginia before serving as the first Black principal 
in the State College Area School District. After 40 years as an 
educator, Barbara became director of multicultural affairs at the Penn 
State College of Information Sciences and Technology. She also found 
time to volunteer and to serve her community outside of work, serving 
on the boards of Centre County United Way and the Women's Resource 
Center, while also chairing the State College Borough's Dr. Martin 
Luther King, Jr., Plaza Committee.
  Edgar is a retired U.S. Army veteran who served in Vietnam, attended 
Penn State in the mid-1970s, and worked in higher education in North 
Carolina for

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almost two decades. In 1996, he returned to Penn State as a professor 
of workforce education and development.
  Prior to retirement, Edgar Farmer worked in a number of roles, 
including head of Learning and Performance Systems and professor-in-
charge of the Workforce Education and Development Program.
  Barbara and Edgar Farmer have long shared their wisdom and expertise 
outside the classroom, coauthoring the two books: the first, 
``Diversity in America: Visions of the Future,'' and the second, 
``Leading with Character.''
  They are leading contributors to local news outlets on the issues of 
education and diversity. In 2017, they served on Penn State's Policing 
People of Color Task Force and have long been involved in diversity 
issues in the Borough of State College.
  Barbara and Edgar are also committed philanthropists, establishing 
and contributing to a number of funds and scholarships at Penn State, 
as well as Hampton University and Norfolk State University, where 
Barbara and Edgar received their undergraduate degrees.
  Last November, as honorees of Penn State's annual Renaissance Fund 
celebration, Barbara and Edgar helped to raise nearly $200,000 for 
scholarships for students with financial needs. Regarding that event, 
Barbara summed up their approach to service, saying:

       All we have done and all we hope to continue doing is part 
     of the charge that we have been given as our life's task. 
     Supporting one another and taking care of one another make 
     the world and our community a better place.

  No one could say it better than Barbara did.
  So, once again, it is a privilege to be able to honor these 
remarkable Pennsylvanians and to speak briefly about their 
accomplishments here on the Senate floor.
  Loretta Claiborne, Donta Green, Lurline Jones, and Edgar and Barbara 
Farmer are each, in their own right, individually and collectively, 
truly inspirational figures and leaders who have brought about 
remarkable change through their own efforts through their courage but 
who will continue to empower generational change, inspiring others to 
also fight for the change that we need across our commonwealth and our 
country.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana.