[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 4]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page 4971]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]


                       TRIBUTE TO UNITA BLACKWELL

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                        HON. BENNIE G. THOMPSON

                             of mississippi

                    in the house of representatives

                         Monday, March 3, 2003

  Mr. THOMPSON of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, in commemoration of Black 
History Month, I would like to take this opportunity to recognize the 
many accomplishments of distinguished African Americans in 
Mississippi's Second Congressional District.
  Unita Blackwell, a living legend who went from picking cotton to a 
leadership role in the civil rights movement. She was elected Mayor of 
Mayersville, a small town in the Mississippi Delta. She is the first 
African American female mayor in the State.
  The 68-year-old former activist grew up in the Delta region of the 
state at a time when conditions there were desperate. She came from a 
family of sharecroppers and picked cotton into adulthood.
  The year that changed her life was 1964--Mississippi Freedom Summer. 
She joined forces with the freedom riders and with activists working 
for the Student Nonviolent Coordination Committee (SNCC). The objective 
was to register African Americans fully 36 percent of the State's 
population--to vote. She also participated in the struggle to 
desegregate the delegations that Mississippi sent to the Democratic 
National Convention.
  The effort failed in 1964, but succeeded 4 years later after the 
national Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts was passed ending legally 
mandated segregation in the state and throughout the South. For the 
first time since Reconstruction, Mississippi sent an integrated 
delegation to the 1968 Democratic Convention. It was the crowning 
achievement of Mississippi Freedom Summer.
  She is a past national president of the U.S.-China People's 
Friendship Association and has visited the country a number of times. 
``The same principles applies to international relations as to 
relations within countries. It's all about understanding and working 
together to forge solutions,'' she says. ``Everyone--all over the 
world--has two eyes, a nose and a mouth; we should get along and treat 
each other right.''

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