[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 3]
[Senate]
[Pages 2912-2914]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          BLACK HISTORY MONTH

  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I will make a few comments in respect to 
the

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closing days of Black History Month, the month of February.
  Two weeks ago, I had the opportunity to take a truly extraordinary 
journey with Members of the Senate and House Members. I use the word 
``journey'' because this trip was not only to a geographic destination, 
not only a place to which we traveled but, indeed, was in many ways an 
emotional and a spiritual voyage that touched--I know me and, in 
talking to my colleagues, them--in very deep and meaningful ways.
  It was 2 weeks ago Friday that we departed from Washington. This 
journey was one I had the honor of leading. It was a bipartisan 
delegation. Ten Senators participated at some time over the course of 
those 3 days on this civil rights pilgrimage to Alabama and to 
Tennessee. It was a real privilege to travel not just with my 
colleagues in this body and the House of Representatives, but also 
traveling with us were some of the loftiest figures of the civil rights 
movement.
  These included our colleague, Congressman John Lewis, who, by the 
way, graciously organizes this trip each year for his colleagues. This 
is the first time he specifically put it together for the Senate, but 
also traveling with us or speaking to us as we were in Alabama and 
Tennessee were the real civil rights giants, people such as Dorothy 
Cotton; Bernard LaFayette, who I had the opportunity to get to know 
over the years, he is a close friend of a physician friend, Dr. Karl 
VanDevender from Nashville; Diane Nash, who played a prominent role in 
the nonviolence movement, much of which originated in Tennessee; 
Johnnie Carr; Attorney Chestnut, whose vivid words are starkly ringing 
in my mind even as I stand here; Bob Mants, and the list goes on--
people who were there, people who participated through the late 1950s 
and early 1960s in the civil rights and nonviolence movement.
  I say to them and take this opportunity, something I have told each 
one personally, to publicly thank them for their service to our 
country, for their willingness to face violence and intimidation 
directly, to face injustice and to face oppression, and to face all of 
this with bravery and to face it with love and caring and compassion. 
It was this juxtaposition of one facing the other that ultimately had 
the impact of transforming America. Indeed, it led to a great awakening 
that continues to reverberate through history.
  I also thank these remarkable individuals for sharing their hearts 
over this 3-day period, of sharing their faith, sharing their 
spirituality, and sharing their stories with us for these intense 
sessions over Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. I speak for my colleagues. 
Again, 10 Senators is 10 percent of the Senators in this body 
participating in this pilgrimage in some shape or form. I speak for all 
of them when I say that we thank the participants from the civil rights 
movement who spoke to us, who spent time with us, and left us 
profoundly inspired.
  We began our trip in Montgomery, AL, visiting the Montgomery bus stop 
where Rosa Parks said no to moving to the back of the bus. We marched 
over the Edmund Pettus Bridge where--you read about it and you study it 
and you hear where, as they marched over the bridge they were trampled 
by horses and were beaten with billy clubs and were sprayed with tear 
gas just for the audacity of seeking their constitutional right to 
vote. You read about it and you hear about it and you see it in some 
little clips, but actually being there, that physical presence, that 
physical sense of time and space that we were given 2 weeks ago, really 
captures the full picture as much as one can. Again, to those 
participants, I say thank you.
  We met with people throughout who were present and who described the 
crushing of bones as those billy clubs came down; people who, in the 
first person, described in such vivid detail, that had such a 
tremendous impact when you hear it. It is difficult for me to find just 
the right words to express the power of standing shoulder to shoulder 
with people who actually crossed the bridge at the time, that bridge 
that almost 40 years ago was faced with the threatening opposition 
standing before them.
  We later visited the Birmingham Sixteenth Street Baptist Church where 
four young girls perished on that vicious Sunday morning bomb attack--
again, talking to other people who were in the church that morning when 
that bomb went off, taking the lives of those four young girls.
  We walked through Kelly Ingram Park where Bull Connor unleashed dogs 
and fire hoses on schoolchildren. And on Sunday we entered the 
Nashville First Baptist Church where the nonviolence movement's young 
heroes studied and learned and where we heard accurately described the 
role-playing of nonviolence which ultimately played out just a few 
weeks and a few months later in the historic lunch counter sit-ins in 
Nashville. The role-playing, the studying, the curriculum, the 
discipline, was all around a movement of nonviolence which 
characterized so much of the subsequent Civil Rights Act in the late 
1950s and early 1960s. We met many of the participants who were at the 
historic lunch counter sit-ins in Nashville, sit-ins that peacefully 
transformed Nashville, TN, over a period of weeks and then months, sit-
ins that started at the lunch counters and subsequently a few months 
later moved to the movie theaters.
  We walked in the footsteps of giants, and we came closer thereby to 
knowing them as men and women.
  I relate all this because it is also clear to me that the movement is 
not over. So much has changed. We heard it again and again, so much has 
changed in a very short period of time, but the great hope of that 
movement has yet to be realized; that is, full equality not only before 
the law but in the lives of every single citizen.
  Immediately you relate it to the sort of things we do in the Senate, 
to create an environment that equality is not just before the law but 
in the lives of every citizen. That means equal education. It means no 
child left behind. It means equal opportunity to live the American 
dream. It means equal treatment at the doctor's office. It means equal 
consideration by the mortgage lender. It means equal opportunities to 
climb that economic ladder and to open the doors to higher learning.
  As we celebrate Black History Month, as we look forward to the 50th 
anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, we must remember that, yes, 
yes, we have come a long, long way, but there are still many miles to 
go.
  In his historic speech following the march to Selma, the great Dr. 
King told his fellow freedom marchers and, I should add, generations to 
follow:

       We must come to see that the end we seek is a society at 
     peace with itself, a society that can live with its 
     conscience. And that will be a day not of the white man, not 
     of the black man. That will be the day of man as man.
  I would like to close with a wonderful account that I think does 
underscore the universality and great achievement of the civil rights 
movement. It also underscores the truth that all it takes is one person 
and one act of courage to inspire millions.
  The following is an account by the historian Douglas Brinkley. The 
year is 1990. Nelson Mandela is arriving in Detroit, MI, where Rosa 
Parks awaits on the tarmac. The passage reads:

       ``He won't know me,'' Parks kept repeating, embarrassed 
     that she had come.
       Moments later the airplane's door opened and Nelson Mandela 
     accompanied by his then-wife Winnie appeared to the 
     enthusiastic crowd, shouting ``Viva Nelson!'' and 
     ``Amandala!'' the Swahili word for power. Slowly he made his 
     way down the steps and toward the receiving line. Suddenly he 
     froze, staring openmouthed in wonder. Tears filled his eyes 
     as he walked up to the small old woman with her hair in two 
     silver braids crossed atop her head.
       And in a low, melodious tone, Nelson Mandela began to 
     chant, ``Ro-sa Parks. Ro-sa Parks. Ro-sa Parks,'' until his 
     voice crescendoed into a rapturous shout, ``Ro-sa Parks!''
       Then the two brave old souls, their lives so distant yet 
     their dreams so close, fell into each other's arms, rocking 
     back and forth in a long, joyful embrace. And in that 
     poignant, redemptive moment, the enduring dignity of the 
     undaunted afforded mankind rare proof of its own progress.

  Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.

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  The assistant journal clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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