[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 5]
[Senate]
[Pages 5990-5991]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                 TRIBUTE TO THE HONORABLE JOHN R. LEWIS

  Mr. SARBANES. Mr. President, 5 years ago Salisbury University, which 
is located in the town of Salisbury on Maryland's Eastern Shore, 
established PACE, the Institute for Public Affairs and Civic 
Engagement. PACE has a dual mission: to serve the communities of the 
Eastern Shore, using campus resources, faculty-student research teams 
and off-campus opportunities like internships and a voter registration 
drive to promote responsible citizenship and good government; and to 
promote the active engagement of students in civic affairs. For 
Salisbury Professors Harry Basehart, of the political science 
department, and Francis Kane, of the philosophy department, who 
together founded PACE and serve as its co-directors, this is a personal 
mission as well.
  Among PACE's many programs is an annual lecture series that brings to 
the campus distinguished guests to speak on issues of public life, 
especially issues that most concern Salisbury's students. The speaker 
this year, on March 29, was Congressman John R. Lewis, who represents 
Georgia's 5th Congressional District and is serving his ninth term.
  It is fair to say that in all his life from his childhood in rural 
Troy, AL, through his years as a student leader in the civil rights 
movement, to his dedicated service in the Congress Congressman Lewis 
has never known a day of lassitude, apathy or indifference. He spoke to 
Salisbury's students from the perspective of his own student years, and 
I have rarely seen an audience listen with such focused intensity.
  As it happens, I was born and raised in Salisbury. I was deeply 
honored to have the opportunity to introduce Congressman Lewis to the 
Salisbury community, and I ask unanimous consent to print my 
introductory remarks in the Congressional Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

[[Page 5991]]



  Introduction for Congressman John R. Lewis, PACE Lecture, Salisbury 
                               University

                     (By Senator Paul S. Sarbanes)

       It is pleasure to return to the campus of Salisbury 
     University. As many of you know, coming to Salisbury is as 
     always coming home. My parents had come to this country as 
     immigrants from Greece and they settled in Salisbury. I grew 
     up here and went to Wicomico County's public schools. 
     Lifelong convictions and aspirations first took shape in 
     Salisbury.
       Today it is a special pleasure to be here, because I have 
     the signal honor and privilege of introducing my 
     congressional friend and colleague, John R. Lewis, as the 
     third speaker in the annual lecture series sponsored by PACE, 
     this University's Institute for Public Affairs and Civic 
     Engagement.
       The purpose of the lecture series is to bring distinguished 
     public figures to the campus to speak on issues of public 
     life. That certainly describes Congressman Lewis, who is 
     serving his ninth term in the House of Representatives as the 
     representative of Georgia's 5th congressional district, which 
     includes the city of Atlanta. Congressman Lewis sits on the 
     Ways and Means and Budget Committees, both with critically 
     important jurisdictions. He is universally respected as a 
     legislator. Most recently he guided to enactment legislation 
     to establish a new National Museum of African American 
     History and Culture. The Museum will take its rightful place 
     among our nation's great Smithsonian Institutions on the 
     Mall.
       But as many of you surely know--as I hope all of you know--
     Congressman Lewis's distinguished record in the House of 
     Representatives is but one part of what makes him so special 
     as this year's PACE lecturer.
       When PACE was established 5 years ago, its founders 
     Professors Harry Baseheart and Fran Kane said their objective 
     was ``to save the next generation from the enervating winds 
     of political apathy and cynicism and to play a part in a 
     revival of civil engagement among our students.'' Through its 
     many programs, including this lectureship, that is precisely 
     what PACE does.
       I think it is fair to say that there has not been a single 
     day in John Lewis's remarkable life which has been marked by 
     cynicism, apathy or disengagement. For the full story, I 
     commend to you his absolutely gripping memoir, Walking with 
     the Wind. But I want to say a few words about it.
       In his memoir, Congressman Lewis tells us that his 
     engagement began as he watched the bus boycott in Montgomery, 
     AL, 50 miles from his home in rural Troy. Martin Luther King 
     put words into action, he says, ``in a way that set the 
     course of my life from that point on. . . . With all that I 
     have experienced in the past half century, I can still say 
     without question that the Montgomery bus boycott changed my 
     life more than any other event before or since.''
       John Lewis was then 15 years old. He was setting out on a 
     long and dangerous road with twists and turns, on a journey 
     demanding inexhaustible supplies of moral and also physical 
     courage.
       Today we call that road the Civil Rights Movement. It is 
     central to understanding the history of our country in the 
     past 50 years.
       Seen from another perspective, the Movement is the story of 
     John Lewis's life, as he has lived it day by day.
       In 1957, John Lewis managed to get to college in Nashville 
     on a full scholarship. There he became a leader in the 
     student sit-in movement, which challenged the laws that 
     allowed African Americans to spend their money shopping in 
     Nashville's stores but forbade them to sit at the lunch 
     counters. David Halberstam has observed that the students had 
     much in the way of ideals and convictions, but they had no 
     protection--``no police force, no judges, no cops, no 
     money.''
       John Lewis went to jail for sitting down--the first of some 
     40 times he was to go to jail. Three months later, the lunch 
     counters ``served food to black customers for the first time 
     in the city's history.''
       John Lewis went on the Freedom Rides, which tested the 
     Supreme Court ruling that all vestiges of segregation in 
     interstate travel had to end. As he observes in his memoir, 
     ``Issuing the decision was one thing, of course. Carrying it 
     out, as I would soon learn firsthand, was another.''
       He rode the first bus, which traveled from Washington, DC, 
     to Mississippi. He can recount for you better than I how many 
     times he was beaten and jailed in the course of that ride. 
     The violence that the Freedom Riders encountered was for most 
     Americans unimaginable.
       In the summer of 1961, when the ride ended, John Lewis was 
     21 years old.
       There is not enough time today to do justice to that ride, 
     or John Lewis's years as chairman of SNCC, the Student Non-
     Violent Coordinating Committee, or his speech on the Mall in 
     Washington in 1963. But in this election year I want to 
     comment on the events that took place in Selma, AL, on March 
     7, 1965. They have gone down in our history as ``Bloody 
     Sunday.''
       On that day several hundred Americans set out to march from 
     Selma to Montgomery, Alabama's capital. Their purpose was to 
     press for the right to vote, a right denied to African 
     Americans. The unarmed marchers were brutally attacked by a 
     ``human wave'' of ``troopers and possemen.'' John Lewis was 
     among many beaten unconscious.
       Bloody Sunday shocked the Nation. Five months later the 
     historic Voting Rights Act of 1965 was signed into law--a 
     direct consequence of the horrific attack at Selma. In the 
     words of Taylor Branch, ``The powerful new law broke decades 
     of impediment and heartache.''
       On Bloody Sunday, every marcher's life was on the line--for 
     the right to vote.
       I ask you to reflect on the events at Selma and their 
     meaning for our Nation, and on November 2--Election Day 
     2004--to exercise your priceless citizen's right vote.
       From the beginning our Nation has lived by certain abiding 
     principles. These were set out more than 60 years ago by the 
     distinguished Swedish sociologist Gunnar Myrdal, in his 
     landmark study of race and America democracy, An American 
     Dilemma. He called this ``The American Creed.'' Here are his 
     words: ``It is the current in the structure of this great and 
     disparate nation . . . encompassing our `ideals of the 
     essential dignity of the individual human being, of the 
     fundamental equality of all men (and women), and of certain 
     inalienable rights to freedom, justice, and a fair 
     opportunity.' These ideals are ``written into the Declaration 
     of Independence, the Preamble of the Constitution, the Bill 
     of Rights and into the constitutions of the several states.''
       For much of its history our Nation failed to live up to the 
     principles it espoused. It has been John Lewis's lifelong 
     mission to end the terrible contradiction that once assured 
     these rights to some of our people while cruely denying them 
     to others. He has led and inspired generations of Americans 
     to make our Nation a better place for all our people. He has 
     an incredible story to tell. It is a privilege to have 
     Congressman Lewis on the Salisbury campus today, and I am 
     honored to introduce him.

                          ____________________