[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 12]
[House]
[Pages 16621-16622]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                             ON HATE CRIMES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Davis) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, this year the celebration of our 
Nation's birthday, July the 4th, was shattered by a string of hate 
crime attacks in the Chicago area, apparently the attacks of Benjamin-
Smith who had links to the World Church of the Creator.
  The targets of his attacks included African Americans, Asian 
Americans and Orthodox Jews. Northwestern University basketball coach 
Ricky Byrdsong, and Indiana University student Won-Joon Yoon died as a 
result of these attacks.
  Followers of the church have been linked by police and civil rights 
groups to numerous other incidents, including the 1991 murder of an 
African American sailor in Neptune Beach, Florida; the 1993 fire 
bombing of the NAACP office in Tacoma, Washington; the 1997 beating of 
a black man and his son in Sunrise, Florida; and the 1998 beating and 
robbery of a Jewish businessman in Hollywood, Florida.
  Two brothers held on stolen property charges related to the slaying 
of a gay couple are being investigated in arson attacks at three 
synagogues. The brothers' relationship to the World Church is being 
investigated. But hate crimes are not new or uncommon in the Chicago 
region. Looking over newspaper headlines, we find that in May, a mosque 
in DuPage County was desecrated, only the latest in a string of such 
desecrations.
  A group of white teenagers attacked a black police officer near the 
Dan Ryan Woods.
  A Gurnee man convicted and awaiting sentence for a hate crime against 
a biracial couple was arrested and charged with illegal possession of 
several weapons.
  A 27-year-old was charged with a hate crime for intentionally running 
down two African American teenagers as they rode their bikes along a 
Kenosha sidewalk.
  A Crystal Lake man was charged with shooting and killing a Japanese 
store owner just because of his ethnicity.
  A Federal jury convicted a Blue Island man of cross burnings before 
the home of black neighbors in an effort to drive them from the 
neighborhood.
  A Pakistani gas station attendant was attacked by a customer because 
of his ethnicity.
  A retired Chicago firefighter settled a racial harassment suit, 
admitting his guilt of hate crimes against his Hispanic neighbors and 
apologizing for his acts.
  Pizza Hut in Godfrey, Illinois settled a suit brought by an African 
American family which they refused to serve and threatened in the 
parking lot after they left the restaurant.
  An Hispanic couple was subjected to repeated incidents of racial hate 
crimes, including the painting of their homes and garages with racist 
graffiti.
  Three men who beat 13-year-old Lenard Clark into a coma because they 
did not like African Americans cycling through their neighborhood were 
convicted.
  A Chicago Heights man was convicted of attacking a biracial couple in 
Chicago's Lakeview neighborhood.
  Four teenagers, professed skinheads, were arrested for spray-painting 
anti-Semitic slogans on roads, signs and overpasses.
  An African American man in Mokena was the victim of repeated hate 
crimes after receiving newspaper clippings covered with racial slurs.
  A Waukegan man was convicted of kicking a Mexican-American teenager 
who lay dying in the street after a traffic accident.
  Three white teenagers in Belleville admitted to dragging a black teen 
beside their sport utility vehicle.
  A Rolling Meadows man was convicted of hate crimes after shouting 
racial slurs and attacking an African American in a bowling alley.
  The list is much longer. Though the Justice Department is required to 
publish a report of hate crimes, police

[[Page 16622]]

agencies are not required to report crimes to the Department of 
Justice. Hundreds of agencies do not report hate crimes. Many 
individuals are afraid to report hate crimes.
  In Illinois, 114 departments reported one or more hate crimes 
totaling 333 for 1996. The remaining 787 agencies reported no hate 
crimes. It is obvious that hate crimes are running rampant throughout 
not only Illinois but throughout our country. They cannot, should not 
and must not be tolerated.
  I urge America to come into the 21st century as one Nation with 
enough room for everybody to live.
  Hate crimes are an attack on individuals or groups of individuals. 
But they are also an attack on our communities and our nation. The 
strength of our nation flows directly from the powerful notion that 
democracy and equality form the inseparable, interlinked foundation for 
our economic, social and cultural progress.
  Our democracy succeeds because the notions of democracy and equality 
and the constant struggle to expand and deepen democracy and equality 
have grown and spread and taken root in the psyche of our people.
  The struggle for equality for African Americans, Latinos, Asian 
Americans, Native Americans and women have not been easy or painless. 
These struggles are far from complete.
  I believe the historical record is clear: every American has 
benefitted, our Nation has been enriched, by breaking down the barriers 
which prevent some Americans from fully participating in, contributing 
to and benefitting from all that America has to share.
  Hate crimes, and those who perpetrate such crimes, crimes which 
target victims based on race, religion, gender or sexual orientation, 
tear at the heart of America, at the ideal that people all over the 
world look to for inspiration. Hate crimes are twice as likely to cause 
injury and four times as likely to result in hospitalization as 
assaults in general.
  Our Nation fought a bloody civil war to determine whether a nation 
conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men (and 
women) are created equal can long endure. The resounding answer to that 
question, written in the blood of so many Americans, was nothing less 
than a second American Revolution.
  It is no accident that our Department of Justice was born in 1871 
following the Civil War as a response to the wave of hate crime terror 
instituted by the Ku Klux Klan. And, within the space of a few years 
the DOJ brought more than 500 prosecutions under the Enforcement Acts 
which broke the back of the Klan. It is unfortunate that the second and 
third incarnations of the Klan were not met with similarly forceful 
responses.
  We need additional legislation on the Federal level to reinforce and 
upgrade the tools, both criminal and civil which give law enforcement 
the ability to prevent and punish hate crimes. Now is the time for 
state and local government to review their hate crime laws and upgrade 
the training of law enforcement officials to respond to hate crimes.
  Most important, we must rally every American, every man, woman and 
child to join in defending our democracy. The best defense against hate 
crime is mass revulsion and rejection of racism, sexism and homophobia.
  To paraphrase the remarks of Frederick Douglass, of July 4, 1852 
condemning slavery and racism:

       * * * It is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not 
     the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the 
     whirlwind and the earthquake. The feeling of the nation which 
     is insensitive to such crimes must be quickened; the 
     conscience of the nation which tolerates such crimes must be 
     roused; the propriety of the nation which ignores such crimes 
     must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation which tolerates 
     such crimes must be exposed; and these crimes against God and 
     community, men and women must be proclaimed and denounced and 
     fought against with every fiber of our national will.

  Hate crimes must not be tolerated at any level in our society.

                          ____________________