[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 4]
[House]
[Pages 5281-5287]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



       TRIBUTE TO THE LATE CHEVENE BOWERS KING, A GREAT GEORGIAN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Sherwood). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 6, 1999, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Bishop) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. BISHOP. Mr. Speaker, I am honored and humbled to have the 
opportunity today to take this time with some of my colleagues to pay 
tribute to the life of a good and a great Georgian, the late Chevene 
Bowers King.
  On last Monday, April 3, this House passed a measure, Senate bill 
1567, which designated the United States courthouse located at 223 
Broad Avenue in Albany, Georgia, as the C.B. King United States 
Courthouse.
  Oh, what a wonderful tribute, what a tribute to a life that has been 
given in unselfish service for so many people.
  Someone wrote the poem:


                              Good Timber

     ``A tree that never had to fight
     For sun and sky and air and light,
     That stood out in the open plain
     And always got its share of rain,
     Never became a forest king,
     But lived and died a scrubby thing.

[[Page 5282]]

     A man who never had to toil
     By hand or mind in life's turmoil,
     Who never had to earn his share
     Of sun and sky and light and air,
     Never became a manly man,
     But lived and died as he began.
     Good timber doesn't grow in ease;
     The stronger winds, the tougher trees.
     The farther sky, the greater length,
     The rougher storm, the greater strength.
     By wind or rain, by sun or snow,
     In trees or man good timbers grow.''

  Chevene Bowers King was a man who was great timber, he was good 
timber, and the legacy that he left in his beloved Southland is one 
that will be enjoyed and revered and remembered for many, many years to 
come.
  When we talked about introducing the bill to name the courthouse 
after C.B. King, it was interesting that there were four chief 
cosponsors, two of them United States Senators from the State of 
Georgia, Senator Paul Coverdell, Senator Max Cleland, and two of them 
House members from the State of Georgia, the honorable gentleman from 
Georgia (Mr. Lewis), and myself, Sanford Bishop. We introduced bills in 
both houses to designate the courthouse on Broad Avenue in Albany, 
Georgia, the C.B. King United States Courthouse.
  How ironic it is that two white U.S. Congressmen, perhaps the 
descendents of slave owners, and two African-American Congressmen, 
perhaps the descendents of slaves, were able to come together with a 
common history in our beloved South to give tribute to a man who 
brought the races together and who helped to break down the walls of 
racial discrimination.
  Just as Robert Benham, Chief Justice of the Georgia Supreme Court, 
wrote a letter in support of legislation to name the courthouse, he 
described C.B. King as ``A man who proved to be all things to all 
people. His vision, innovation, brilliant legal reasoning skills, 
compassion, and courage led to reforms that impacted not only the good 
people of the State of Georgia, but the entire Nation.''
  He felt that it was fitting that a Federal courthouse is named in his 
honor. ``His leadership and legal mastery in several landmark cases 
established a groundwork for school desegregation, voting rights, and 
jury selection reform. He worked tirelessly to promote equal access to 
employment, health care, public facilities, and services on a national 
level.''

                              {time}  1945

  There is no finer example of professionalism, he said, than C.B. 
King, extremely competent, a public servant, community activist, led 
the fight for the rights of all people; an organizer, a participant, an 
attorney for the Albany Movement. The Albany Movement was a series of 
demonstrations and sit-ins held during the early 1960s designed to help 
end discrimination and segregation in South Georgia and throughout the 
South.
  Dr. Martin Luther King viewed the Albany Movement as a pivotal 
campaign in the civil rights movement. C.B. King was Dr. Martin Luther 
King's lawyer, his trusted friend, his confidant. C.B. represented many 
noted leaders who were forerunners in the fight for equality; and as a 
result, he motivated countless minorities and women to become part of 
the noble legal profession.
  His shining example has inspired lawyers and judges everywhere. So I 
am just honored and humbled that I am able to come today to stand here 
in these hallowed chambers to pay tribute to a man who not only touched 
my life but touched the lives of so many others across Georgia and 
across this Nation.
  I have been joined by one of my colleagues who knew C.B. as I did, 
the honorable gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Lewis). In a moment I will 
yield to him after I make a few more brief comments about C.B.
  Chevene Bowers King was born October 12, 1923, in Albany, Georgia, 
the third of eight children of Clinton King, owner of an apparel shop 
and supermarket, and Mrs. Margaret Slater King. He attended Mercer 
Street Elementary School and Madison Street High School in Albany, 
Georgia, and after graduation he attended Tuskegee University and then 
he enlisted in the United States Navy.
  After his 3 years of service in the Navy, he enrolled at Fisk 
University where he earned his bachelor's degree in political science. 
Pursuing his education further, he attended Case Western Reserve 
University School of Law in Cleveland, Ohio. He attended Case Western 
Reserve because for a young black college graduate in the South, there 
were no law schools for him to attend. So he had to go North.
  He went to Case Western. He graduated from law school, but unlike so 
many who fled the South, C.B. was committed to returning to his 
homeland to make a difference, to try to break down the walls of 
discrimination and the racism that inhibited the growth and development 
of millions and millions and millions of young people. So he returned 
to Albany, Georgia, and he started up the practice of law.
  He married Carol Roumain and he had a family; four sons, Chevene, 
Jr., Kenyan, Leland, Clennon, and a daughter, Peggy.
  C.B. practiced law for many years, and he truly made a difference.
  The kinds of cases that C.B. handled are the kinds of cases that 
inspired us and that ultimately transformed the South from a land that 
was dreaded to a land of opportunity and a land which now leads the 
Sunbelt in these United States. C.B. is remembered, perhaps, most for 
his legal activism in the South. He became the leading civil rights 
attorney in southwest Georgia, being only one of three African American 
lawyers in the entire State of Georgia. He worked closely with the 
local chapters of the National Association for the Advancement of 
Colored People and was a cooperating attorney with the NAACP Legal 
Defense and Educational Fund.
  His work spanned the entire range of civil rights litigation. He 
handled school desegregation cases. He was a lead attorney in the 
school desegregation cases in Dougherty County, in Georgia, in Muscogee 
County in Georgia, in Colquitt County in Georgia. He was one of the 
earlier manifestations of the need for political involvement by African 
Americans, and he led the fight to ensure the right to peaceably 
assemble and to demonstrate. He led the fight to allow African American 
voters and candidates for office to not be subjected to 
unconstitutional segregation and discrimination, whether it be on the 
registration being denied the opportunity to register to vote or being 
forced to vote in separate voting booths.
  C.B. led the fight for voting rights and political rights. Not only 
did he lead the fight in terms of voting, in terms of desegregation, 
but he also, in the halls of justice, saw injustice when women and 
African Americans were denied the right to serve on juries. So he went 
into the Federal courthouse in Albany, Georgia, and attacked these 
matters. As a result of several of these jury discrimination cases, in 
Mitchell County, Quitman County, Dougherty County, Terrell County, 
Baker County and indeed in the Federal court system there in the Middle 
District of Georgia, he led and successfully opened the opportunity for 
blacks and for women to serve on juries.
  Of course, it is interesting that he also expanded his civil rights 
struggle to block discrimination in employment, particularly public 
employment. The city of Albany, he handled that case. He was known as a 
legal scholar. He was an excellent orator. He had a royal presence, and 
he brought an intensity to the civil rights movement. I am just honored 
and delighted that this House and this Nation has finally recognized 
the legacy and the contribution of this great Georgian.
  Mr. Speaker, at this time I yield to my colleague, the gentleman from 
Georgia (Mr. Lewis), a son of the South, a product of the civil rights 
movement, who knew C.B. King as I did on a personal basis and who has 
personal experiences and a personal legacy that he can relate regarding 
C.B. King. At this time I would like to yield to the distinguished 
gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Lewis).
  Mr. LEWIS of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my friend and my 
colleague, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Bishop), for yielding and 
for bringing to the attention of this body and to

[[Page 5283]]

our Nation the life and times of C.B. King.
  C.B. King possessed a gifted legal mind. He was an amazing member of 
the bar. C.B. King combined a flair for words with the unique ability 
to talk to people from all walks of life. He could give simple legal 
advice to a poor client and a minute later force a judge to dust off 
his dictionary. Along with other lawyers in his staff like Fred Gray of 
Montgomery, Arthur Shores and Peter Hall of Birmingham, and Jack Young 
of Jackson, Mississippi, C.B. King used his gift to bring about a 
nonviolent revolution under the rule of law.
  In the struggle for civil rights, even the shield of law was often 
not enough. Despite intimidation and the attacks, C.B. King refused to 
retreat from his principles. When a cane-swinging Albany sheriff split 
his head open for showing up at the local jail to meet a client, C.B. 
King refused to back down. When his pregnant sister-in-law lost her 
child after being slapped and kicked by police during a protest in 
South Georgia, C.B. King refused to back down; and when his brother 
Preston King was forced to flee the country rather than be unjustly 
imprisoned, C.B. King refused to back down.
  C.B. King came by his resolve honestly. He often compared his 
father's determination to that of Hannibal, the general who led his 
troops on elephants across the Alps. Like his father, C.B. was driven 
and he paid little mind to long odds.
  In 1970, I recall C.B. King became the first black person since 
reconstruction to run for governor of Georgia. I had the great honor of 
hosting a fund-raiser for him that summer in the backyard of my home. 
C.B. King did not win the governor's office but he did win hundreds and 
thousands of followers and friends, and C.B. King understood that one 
had to plow the field before they planted the crop.
  C.B. King plowed that field and the seeds of change were sown in his 
wake. Today I stand as a Member of Congress with my colleague, the 
gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Bishop), as a living legacy to his 
struggle. I owe him a great deal of gratitude. I think we all do. So 
tonight I must thank my colleague, my friend and my brother, the 
gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Bishop), for offering the legislation to 
name a courthouse in honor of C.B. King.
  C.B. King would be very proud of the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. 
Bishop) and the way he represents the good people of South Georgia. So 
it is fitting that the gentleman leads the effort to honor this legend 
of the Georgia bar, this humane and good man that helped to make our 
Nation a different place, a better place. I can think of no better 
tribute than to name a courthouse in C.B. King's honor.
  The mention of C.B. King's name once prompted an undertaker who was 
busy burying one of C.B.'s brothers to pause, look down at C.B. King's 
simple headstone and a family plot and say, ``He was something else.''
  I have to admit I could never have said it any better because he was 
something else.
  I thank my friend, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Bishop), for 
holding this special order.
  Mr. BISHOP. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. 
Lewis), my good friend and a friend of C.B. King. I found it so very 
interesting that the gentleman and I, both natives of Alabama now 
residents of Georgia and Georgia citizens, have now begun to live out 
the legacy of C.B. King.
  Interestingly enough, for C.B. fighting for voting rights, for the 
end of segregation in voter registration, the end of segregation in the 
voting booths in Georgia, South Georgia in particular, that was not 
enough for him. He thought that the transformation could not just stop 
at the courthouse doors. So as the gentleman pointed out, he 
demonstrated for us that it was possible for us to run for office.
  He ran for President in 1960 and he ran for governor in 1970, and in 
1964 he ran for Congress in the Second Congressional District, the seat 
that I now hold. It is also interesting that at the same time C.B. King 
was contesting the Georgia primary in 1970, one of his opponents was 
Jimmy Carter, who was then running for governor. C.B. did not win the 
primary. Jimmy Carter ultimately did and became governor, but there 
were hundreds of thousands of people all across the State who gained a 
new respect for C.B. King and for the fact that there was an articulate 
orator, eloquent, debonair who could use polysyllabic words in a way 
that none had been heard on the campaign stumps in Georgia. When he did 
his televised debate, we all were proud knowing that perhaps he would 
not win but he represented us well. So he planted the seed for us that, 
yes, one day it is possible that we might not only run but we might 
win. For that, we all owe C.B. King a debt of gratitude.

                              {time}  2000

  I was contacted by a constituent after the naming of the courthouse 
where C.B. King was introduced and it appeared in the press. I received 
afternoon e-mail from a constituent who was very irate, who just did 
not think that it was appropriate for that courthouse to be named after 
C.B. King.
  I was struck, but then I understood that, perhaps, there are so many 
in our beloved State of Georgia, so many across the Nation who really 
do not fully understand the tremendous import of the life and career 
that this man had in transforming our native Georgia into the place 
that it is now, not perhaps as perfect as we want it to be, but 
certainly so much better than it used to be, better because of the life 
of C.B. King.
  I responded to this constituent by reminding him that it was C.B. 
King's accomplishments, peacefully utilizing the Constitution and the 
laws of the United States to assure equal opportunity under the law for 
all Georgians regardless of race.
  I reminded this constituent that it should never have been an issue, 
that given the course the history of slavery and Jim Crow, segregation, 
discrimination, the Civil Rights Movement, and eventually the successes 
and the acknowledgment by the courts that all Americans of all races 
must be afforded equal rights under the law, that C.B. King had, 
indeed, made a positive difference.
  I raised the question, what would southwest Georgia be like had C.B. 
King not challenged the status quo in Federal court and forced 
desegregation of the public schools and many of our south Georgia 
school systems.
  Had he not gone into that Federal courthouse in Albany, Georgia, 
would we ever have seen the talent of a Herschel Walker, the talent of 
a Charlie Ward, or the talent of a Judge Herbert Phipps who now sits on 
the Georgia Court of Appeals, or a Robert Benham who is chief justice 
of the Georgia Supreme Court.
  Had C.B. King not gone into Albany's Federal court to force the City 
of Albany to comply with laws prohibiting discrimination in employment 
based on race, creed, color, religion, or sex under Title VII of the 
Civil Rights Act of 1964, Albany and many south Georgia municipalities 
would have been deprived of the talents of countless African American 
public sector employees, such as the current city manager in Albany or 
the police chief or the fire chiefs, and many, many, many others who 
have served in various capacities in the public sector.
  This was a milestone in the history of the south. It was a milestone 
in south Georgia. It was the life and the efforts of C.B. King that 
really made it possible.
  What kind of justice system would we have in southwest Georgia if 
C.B. King had not gone into our Federal courthouse to end the age-old 
practice of excluding blacks and women from serving on juries in State 
and Federal cases?
  What if C.B. King had not been there to have our Federal courts 
protect the rights of citizens of all colors to peaceably assemble and 
petition their government, to be free of discrimination and voter 
registration in the voting booth and in running for office?
  Indeed, I, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Lewis), the gentleman from 
South Carolina (Mr. Clyburn), the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. 
Watt), and many of the members of the Congressional Black Caucus would

[[Page 5284]]

not be here serving in this body, and many thousands of others would 
not be serving in municipalities, on school board, in the State 
legislatures all across the south had it not been for the work of C.B. 
King.
  I have been joined by the distinguished gentleman from South Carolina 
(Mr. Clyburn), another of my colleagues who was a part of the movement, 
who even participated in the Albany Movement, who knew C.B. King, and 
who has gone on to, in the legacy of C.B. King, distinguish himself. He 
is the chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus. He perhaps, as well 
as any, knows, feels, experienced, and has lived the legacy of C.B. 
King.
  Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to yield to the gentleman from South 
Carolina (Mr. Clyburn), my friend and colleague.
  Mr. CLYBURN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Georgia so much 
for yielding me a few moments to speak about that period in our lives 
that tend to mold and make us what we are today. I often reflect upon 
my childhood growing up in South Carolina.
  I remember when I was but a teenager, when my mother, who owned a 
beauty shop, came one day and asked that I accompany her to the Sumter 
County, South Carolina courtroom because she wanted me to see some 
transformation taking place in our State and Nation.
  When I went down that day, I had the great honor of watching in utter 
amazement a great South Carolinian, Matthew Perry, who was arguing a 
case called Nash against the South Carolina Conference of Branches of 
NAACP.
  My mother wanted me to see Matthew Perry because she said to me on 
that day, ``I want you to see what you can be if you stay in school, 
study hard, and grow up to live out your dreams.'' I always held that 
day with me as I went away to college at South Carolina State 
University.
  It was in my junior year that I was bitten by the bug that we all 
call the Student Movement. In the spring of my junior year, I went to 
Raleigh, North Carolina where I joined with other black students from 
all over the country in trying to fashion a response to what had just 
taken place in February of that year at North Carolina A&T University.
  That following fall, we all met in Atlanta, Georgia. I will never 
forget the weekend, October 13, 14 and 15 of 1960. It was that weekend 
that I met the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Lewis), and so many others. 
There we were fashioning what later became known as the Student 
Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Many of us on that weekend met for 
the first time Martin Luther King, Jr.
  It was in discussions that took place there that we learned at his 
knee. I will never forget sitting up all night in a dormitory, I never 
remember the name of the dormitory there at Moorehouse College, where 
we sat with Martin Luther King, Jr. all night until 5:30, 6:00 a.m. in 
the morning, as he tried to get us to understand his nonviolent 
philosophy.
  It was from there that many of us followed him to Albany and the now 
famous Albany Movement where I first had an encounter, and I did not 
know really who he was at the time, I now know, and of course I have 
known for some time, that it was C.B. King.
  So when I saw that the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Bishop) had 
introduced legislation to name a courthouse in the State of Georgia in 
honor of C. B. King, I began to think about all of that.
  Of course those of us in South Carolina, we always looked upon what 
was going on in Atlanta and Georgia, at those guys as being the 
forerunners in so much of this. But I teased the gentleman from Georgia 
(Mr. Bishop) over the last few weeks about having come here with him in 
1993 and having vowed when I got here that the very first thing I was 
going to do was to erect in my own way a memorial to that period in my 
life that meant so much to me and now my children and grandchildren.
  I did that by introducing as my first piece of legislation a bill to 
name the new courthouse plan for Columbia, South Carolina in honor of 
Matthew J. Perry. That bill is now law. We are getting ready to break 
ground on that courthouse, and that courthouse is going to be named for 
Matthew J. Perry. Now Matthew's name is going to go on the courthouse a 
little bit later. C.B. King's name will go on the courthouse in 
Georgia.
  But for the first time in our lives, I got out in front of the 
gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Bishop) on something with connection with 
that period in our lives.
  But it is important to him to memorialize the life of C.B. King in 
this way, just as it was important to me to memorialize the life of 
Matthew J. Perry. Because in that period of our history, we see a lot 
going on today that people sort of take for granted.
  But at that period, in 1960, 1961, 1962, those men and women who took 
it upon themselves to represent us as we filled up the jails all over 
the south, many times took their own human safety into their hands.
  I still remember another attorney from Columbia, Boulware. Boulware 
was kind of interesting. Boulware, on one instance, I think it was 
Greenwood, South Carolina, had to be smuggled out of town in the trunk 
of his automobile.
  This is what C.B. King, Matthew J. Perry, and many others across the 
south, practicing attorneys had to endure in order to lay the 
groundwork that eventually led to many of the court decisions that 
eventually brought many of us here to these hallowed halls.
  So to be here this evening to participate in this special order is 
something that I find very, very satisfying to me, because it tends to 
bear out a little admonition that my mother laid on me when I was about 
12 years old when I was saying to one of her customers in the beauty 
shop, it was a long-time family friend, what I wanted to be when I grow 
up. I told that young lady on that day about my dreams and aspirations 
to be involved in the body politic of South Carolina and this Nation. 
On that day, that lady said to me, ``Son, don't you ever let anybody 
else hear you say that again.''
  On that evening, my mother said to me, as she brought me to the 
kitchen table and told me not to pay any attention to what I had been 
told in the beauty shop that day, for me to hold fast to my dreams. As 
I later read from National Views, ``For if dreams die, life is a broken 
winged bird that cannot fly.''

                              {time}  2015

  I held to those dreams. And with my mother's love, my father's 
support, that of family and friends, and with the hard working 
sacrifice of the C.B. Kings of the world, I was able to get here as a 
Member of this august body.
  To have this courtroom, this courthouse, named for C.B. King, as we 
are doing in Columbia for Matthew J. Perry, these are living memorials 
to a period in our history that makes this country get closer to living 
out its great dream for all of us, to fulfill all that we can be.
  So I am pleased to be here tonight to participate in this special 
order, and I thank my good friend, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. 
Bishop), for having the wisdom and the fortitude to honor this giant 
among men, C.B. King, in this way.
  Mr. BISHOP. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time we have 
remaining?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Tancredo). The gentleman from Georgia 
(Mr. Bishop) has approximately 22 minutes.
  Mr. BISHOP. Mr. Speaker, at this time I am delighted to yield the 
gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Watt).
  The gentleman from North Carolina, as I was in my life before coming 
to Congress, was a practicing attorney. In fact, we both were civil 
rights attorneys. We both shared an experience as Earl Warren Fellows 
of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund. In that capacity, we 
attended biyearly conferences where we were studying the recent 
developments in civil rights law.

[[Page 5285]]

  The gentleman from North Carolina, of course, was with one of the 
most, if not the most, prominent civil rights law firm in Charlotte, 
North Carolina, Chambers, Stein, Ferguson and Lanning. And I, of 
course, was in Georgia, after leaving New York, practicing there in 
Columbus, Georgia.
  I met the gentleman during those years, 1971-1972. All up through the 
next 10 years we would run into each other at least twice a year as we 
labored in the vineyards of civil rights litigation across the south, 
and as we came to Airlie House in Warrenton, Virginia to meet with 
stalwarts like C.B. King and Julius Chambers. The gentleman from North 
Carolina knew C.B. as I knew C.B., and I am delighted to yield to him.
  Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I want to put a slightly 
different spin on this this evening, because I was wondering, when they 
write the history of the 20th Century, what will they write? When they 
write the history of the Civil Rights movement, what will they write?
  They, obviously, will write about Martin Luther King and Fannie Lou 
Hamer and the tremendous sit-ins and the movement. But I submit to my 
colleagues that if they write an accurate history of that period, they 
will write about Thurgood Marshall and Jim Nabrit at the NAACP Legal 
Defense and Education Fund; they will write about Julius Chambers and 
James Ferguson in Charlotte, North Carolina; they will write about 
Matthew Perry and Ernest Finney in South Carolina; they will write 
about Avon Williams in Nashville, Tennessee; they will write about Don 
Hollowell and Howard Moore in Atlanta, Georgia; and Jack Young in 
Mississippi, and Arthur Shores and Fred Gray in Alabama; and, of 
course, they will write about C.B. King in Albany, Georgia.
  Everybody that I have named, almost one black lawyer per State, maybe 
two in some instances, were the people who were not always 
participating in the sit-in demonstrations because somebody had to be 
out there available to go and make the legal arrangements to get those 
people out of jail after they got locked up. They had to represent the 
demonstrators. They had to be in the courtrooms after Brown versus 
Board of Education said ``You shall desegregate the schools with all 
deliberate speed.'' And the deliberate speed took 10 years and 15 
years.
  These lawyers had to be showing up in court to convince southern 
jurors and southern judges, who did not want to implement what the 
United States Supreme Court had said in Brown versus Board of 
Education. They wanted it to take place with the kind of ``all 
deliberate speed'' that would have still had us trying to desegregate 
the schools today. But these lawyers, these fearsome lawyers, were in 
there fighting for justice. Quietly sometimes. Sometimes with very soft 
voices, as Julius Chambers always had. Sometimes with that big bass 
voice, like C.B. King, who could just as well have been a Southern 
Baptist preacher with a booming voice like that.
  That is what I remember about this man who was about the size of the 
gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Bishop). He was not a big guy, but he had 
that big magnificent voice. And he had a sense of timing and 
understanding of what was needed in the Civil Rights movement, and no 
less commitment to change than any of the people who were demonstrating 
in the streets. But the knowledge that he had, the skills and training 
and education, would make our legal system and the laws live out the 
promise that the constitution had committed to us.
  And all of these wonderful lawyers, Julius Chambers, James Ferguson, 
Matthew Perry, Ernest Finney, Avon Williams, Don Hollowell, Howard 
Moore, Fred Gray, C.B. King, all of them had one thing in common: They 
would stand before a judge, sometimes be called all kinds of names that 
we dare not mention in this chamber today, but they would stand firm in 
the eye of the legal storm that was taking place. They would 
strategize. They would always be there.
  So it is from that angle that I give my high tribute to all of these 
wonderful people, the lawyers whose story may never be written, 
certainly will never be written in an adequate fashion, because they 
were the people behind the scenes. But for these brave people, the 
Civil Rights movement and the changes that we have experienced, indeed 
our very presence here in this Congress of the United States, would 
never have occurred.
  I commend my colleague for doing this special order. I commend the 
gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Clyburn) for his tribute to Matthew 
Perry. I commend the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Bishop) for his 
tribute to C.B. King and for naming these buildings for them. And I 
hope that we will give them the kind of justice they are due when the 
history books are written about the 20th Century and the Civil Rights 
movement.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back to the gentleman.
  Mr. BISHOP. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from North Carolina 
(Mr. Watt), Lawyer Watt.
  I truly can say that the Matthew Perrys, the Donald Hollowells, the 
Avon Williamses, the John Walkers in Arkansas, the Jack Ruffins of 
Augusta, Georgia, the Horrace T. Wards in Georgia, all of these have 
been inspirations to us. The late Tom Jackson of Macon, Georgia. They 
were dignified. They were fearless. They were courageous. They were 
intelligent. They were lawyers' lawyers. They were committed to 
upholding and defending the dignity of the common man, the black man, 
the black woman, the disenfranchised. They were true advocates. And for 
them, and the likes of C.B. King, we are grateful.
  Mr. Speaker, I am happy to yield to the distinguished gentlewoman 
from Houston, Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee), who was also an Earl Warren 
Fellow, and who grew in the legacy of these great legal giants like 
C.B. King; and who, like those of us who have spoken before her this 
evening, are living the legacy of their hard work.
  I am delighted to yield to her to hear her perspective on this great 
legal giant Chevene Bowers King.
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. I thank the distinguished gentleman from 
Georgia (Mr. Bishop), Mr. Speaker, and I would say to him and to the 
gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Lewis), and to the gentleman from North 
Carolina (Mr. Watt), and to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. 
Clyburn) that as the gentleman has called the role, C.B. King is 
smiling.
  He is smiling, I say to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Bishop), 
because the gentleman has come to this place, these hallowed halls and, 
as he C.B. King has watched the gentleman legislate, as he has watched 
the gentleman advocate, he is smiling to see that, in the tradition of 
a lawyer's lawyer, the gentleman has made his work to be not in vain.

                              {time}  2030

  I thank you for your leadership. I thank you for honoring C.B. King, 
both in terms of a fixed memorial in Georgia and for this special hour.
  I had the pleasure of being one of the beneficiaries, as so many who 
are unnamed and who are not here, of the kind of legal activism of a 
C.B. King, so I could not miss this opportunity to cite him as one of 
the soldiers who complimented the activism of a John Lewis and a Martin 
King.
  I marched with the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Lewis) in a re-
commemoration of the Selma to Montgomery march. The marches I had were 
slightly different from those that were experienced by Martin King and 
John Lewis and Jose Williams and many others of the SCLC and SNCC. We 
engaged in the Black Student Movements in the institutions in the North 
throughout the 1960s and the 1970s.
  I think the specialness of why we salute C.B. King is because their 
work in the courts was universal to all of us who advocated through 
agitation. I think it motivated all of us who were given the 
opportunity to go on to college, and then choose a way of acting out 
this activism, to choose law school and, out of the opportunity, to see 
and admire those heroes in the courtrooms in the days when it was not 
as light as the times that we may have gone, who

[[Page 5286]]

established the precedent upon which we could argue our cases.
  Mr. Speaker, I am reminded of my activism on death penalty cases, 
being able to use the old civil rights laws or the cases that many had 
already plowed ahead. This is a special time to honor C.B. King. He is 
not an unknown hero. He is part of that cadre of men and women we 
should be repeating time after time in our schools and in our 
celebration and commemoration of Black History Month. These were the 
mechanics, the intellectual mechanics, these who fixed things and put 
them back together again.
  They were fearless. They were articulate. They stayed up long hours. 
They were paid few dollars. Their hearts and their minds were strong.
  On this coming Sunday, April 16, it will be Census Day in Houston, 
Texas, Census Sunday, in fact. And I will spend my time encouraging our 
churches and those who gather in them the value of being counted, the 
value of acknowledging that you are somebody, the value of saying to 
the United States of America we need to be counted. We are claiming our 
birthright and claiming our rights and our responsibility as a citizen, 
and we will act upon it.
  Why is that relevant to C.B. King? It is relevant because C.B. King 
was part of the mechanics to translate what one person, one vote truly 
meant. He is part of the mechanics of allowing us to assemble 
peaceably, to partition against segregation, to allow us to vote freely 
and to speak upon who we want to represent us. C.B. King would be proud 
if we got ourselves counseled, for he is well aware that approaching in 
the year 2000, we will be looking ahead to see whether or not these 
seats, of which all of us hold from the South, all creatures of 
Thurgood Marshall and C.B. King and Julius Chambers and Horace Ward and 
so many others, all creatures of this whole concept of the Voting 
Rights Act and redrawing of the lines, to ensure there is one vote, one 
person.
  Would it not be a tragedy in 2001, similar to 1901, 100 years ago 
when Congressman White stood in this very place as he was drawn out of 
the United States Congress, the last African American Congress person 
to have come through the reconstruction and to stand here in these 
chambers, but he said to this very hollowed body, the Negro will rise 
like the phoenix. Although, this is my last opportunity to debate, my 
last opportunity to be representative, the Negro would rise like the 
phoenix.
  To C.B. King, I owe him much. I owe his mother and his father who 
trained him well. I owe the fact that he left Albany, Georgia, and went 
on to Case Western Reserve Law School, but he came back home. I owe the 
fact that I had the honor of working for the Southern Christian 
Leadership Conference as a young college student. I came to Albany, 
Georgia, to continue part of the Albany Movement that was still going 
on in the 1970s, to press for the right to vote and the right for 
individuals to choose their elected representatives.
  This evening as we honor these heroes, I would like to accept the 
challenge of the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Watt), the 
gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Lewis), I would like us to chronicle the 
numbers of heroes who use the law in the courtroom as the gentleman 
from Georgia (Mr. Bishop) has done for us this evening, maybe we can 
collaborate and get all of these individuals who silently worked, 
starting with Thurgood, who we well know, but there are others who 
quietly worked in the 1940s, who we may not even have knowledge of 
them, to be able to say that they truly took the law, the tools that 
were given them, and did not use them selfishly or for personal self 
aggrandizement, but they used them to free a people. America is a 
better place because they worked to make us free.
  With that, I thank the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Bishop) for giving 
me the courtesy of allowing me to salute a gentleman that I admired 
greatly and that I tried among others to emulate as I got the skills of 
a lawyer. I hope we will be able to honor them more and more.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to pay tribute to Chevene B. King an 
outstanding man and distinguished attorney. As a participant in the 
Earl Warren NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund training program, 
I am honored to inform the American people of a man who championed 
civil rights and carried the movement into the political arena.
  Chevene Bowers King was born on October 12, 1923, in Albany, Georgia, 
the third of eight children of Clennon W. King, the owner of an apparel 
shop and supermarket and Mrs. Margaret Slater King. Mr. King attended 
Mercer Street Elementary School and Madison Street High School in 
Albany. After graduation he attended Tuskegee University for a year and 
then decided to enlist in the United States Navy. After three years of 
service, Mr. King left the Navy and enrolled at Fisk University where 
he earned his bachelors degree in Political Science.
  Pursuing his political education, Mr. King attended Case Western 
Reserve University, School of Law in Cleveland, Ohio. After law school 
he became a pre-eminent civil rights attorney in southwest Georgia, 
working with other African American lawyers from Atlanta, Macon, and 
Savannah. He worked closely with the local chapter of the NAACP, and 
was a cooperating attorney with the NAACP legal Defense and Educational 
Fund.
  His accomplishments and work spanned the entire range of civil rights 
from school desegregation to the Voting Rights Act. He represented 
African American voters and candidates for office in the struggle 
against at the time unconstitutional segregation and discrimination. He 
led the way in making the basic right to serve on juries a reality in 
rural Georgia by bringing a series of lawsuits that exposed the 
discriminatory practices that had continued for more than 100 years 
after the U.S. Supreme Court first held that discrimination in the 
selection of jurors violated the Fourteenth Amendment.
  When the civil rights struggle secured the ability to work in America 
free from discrimination, Mr. King fought to ensure that this right was 
enforced. Mr. King brought a number of actions to enforce the 
provisions of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and to provide 
equal job opportunities for African American workers.
  Mr. King was known as a great scholar of jurisprudence and a superb 
orator. His regal demeanor in the courtroom brought a thoughtful and 
tranquil specter to the meaning of the civil rights movement. In the 
tradition of men like Charles Houston, Thurgood Marshall, and William 
H. Hastie he approached the practice of the law with activism and a 
commitment to excellence in legal scholarship. Because of his 
reputation he was counsel to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Elijah 
Muhammad and the Albany Civil Rights Movement of the early 1960's.
  In 1960, Mr. King ran for President of the United States and for 
governor of Georgia in both cases as a write in candidate. In 1964, 
with utter determination he ran for the congressional seat of the 2nd 
District of Georgia.
  For his courage and commitment to civil rights he received the 
N.C.B.L. Lawyer of the year Award in 1975, A.T. Walden Library Award in 
1977, and the L.S.C.R.R.C. Pro Bono Public Award of the State of 
Georgia. On March 15, 1988, Mr. King passed away at the age of 64 
survived by his wife, Carol Roumain, and his four sons, Chevene B. Jr., 
Leland, Clennon, and his daughter Peggy.
  In closing, I am reminded of the great quote by President Theodore 
Roosevelt,

       The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, 
     whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives 
     valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again, who 
     knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends 
     himself in a worthy cause; who at best, knows the triumph of 
     high achievement; and who, at the worst, if he fails, at 
     least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall 
     never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither 
     victory nor defeat.

  Chevene Bowers King the American people will always remember your 
contributions and we shall always remain in your debt.
  Mr. BISHOP. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. 
Jackson-Lee) for her comments. As we draw this special order to a 
close, this hour to a close, I am just personally grateful that I had 
the opportunity to know C.B. King. He made a tremendous impact on my 
life, as did Howard Moore, Jr. and Donald Hollowell.
  I remember attending law school and wondering if the courses I was 
taking in law school were relevant to the Movement, and contemplating 
leaving law school to engage in some more direct action and getting the 
advice and counsel that the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Watt) so 
aptly described,

[[Page 5287]]

that when people in the Movement are locked up, somebody has got to be 
there legally to get them out.
  Mr. Speaker, I wanted to have a useful skill. I followed in their 
footsteps, went to New York with the Legal Defense Fund, went back to 
Georgia to do as my grandmother said, son, try to brighten the corner 
where you are, improve the community where you live. The South is my 
home. It is my native land. It is where I belong and where I will do 
all within my power to make better following the role models of these 
great giants and, in particular, C.B. King.
  C.B. King really is good timber. Just like the tree that never had to 
fight for sun and sky and air and light, that stood out in the open 
plain and always got its share of rain, but never became a forest king, 
but lived and died a scrubby thing.
  A man who never had to toil by hand or mind in life's turmoil, who 
never had to earn his share of sun and sky and light and air, never 
became a manly man, but lived and died as he began.
  Good timber doesn't grow in ease, the stronger winds, the tougher 
trees, the farther sky, the greatest length, the rougher storm, the 
greater strength.
  By wind or rain, by sun or snow, in trees or man, good timbers grow. 
C.B. King was good timber. We are all better because he lived and 
passed this way.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to thank our two senators, Senator Coverdell and 
Senator Cleland, for their commitment and their vision in introducing 
the legislation on the Senate side, which ultimately passed this House, 
which was a companion legislation to the legislation introduced by the 
gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Lewis) and myself here on the House floor 
to name the United States Courthouse on Broad Avenue in Albany, Georgia 
the C.B. King United States Courthouse; what a fitting tribute.

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