[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 9]
[Senate]
[Pages 12261-12262]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        A FAILING OF THE SENATE

  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, in 45 minutes or so, we will be turning to 
an important issue which people have spoken to over the course of the 
day, an issue we will be spending the evening on. It is an issue that 
is one of the worst failings of this institution in our history, a 
failing surrounding a refusal to act on our part against lynching, 
against vigilantism, against mob murder. It has been a shame in many 
ways. We have to be careful when we use that word, but when we look at 
the reality of missed opportunities to act, we can, with justification, 
use the word ``shame'' on the institution and a shame on Senators who 
didn't just fail to act but deliberately kept the Senate and the whole 
of the Federal Government from acting and from acting proactively.
  Although deep scars will always remain, I am hopeful we will begin to 
heal and help close the wounds caused by lynching. Four out of five 
lynch mob victims were African American. The practice followed slavery 
as an ugly expression of racism and prejudice. In the history of 
lynching, mobs murdered more than 4,700 people. Nearly 250 of those 
victims were from my State of Tennessee. Very few had committed any 
sort of crime whatsoever. Lynching was a way to humiliate, to repress, 
to dehumanize.
  The Senate disgracefully bears some of the responsibility. Between 
1890 and 1952, seven Presidents petitioned Congress to ban lynching. In 
those same 62 years, the House of Representatives passed three 
antilynching bills. Each bill died in the Senate, and the Senate made a 
terrible mistake.
  The tyranny of lynch mobs created an environment of fear throughout 
the American South. Lynching took innocent lives. It divided society, 
and it thwarted the aspirations of African Americans. Lynching was 
nothing less than a form of racial terrorism.
  It took the vision and courage of men and women such as Mary White 
Ovington, W.E.B. Du Bois, George H. White, Jane Adams and, of course, 
fellow Tennessean Ida Wells-Barnett to pass Federal laws against 
lynching and put an end to the despicable practice.
  Ida Wells-Barnett, indeed, may have done more than any other person 
to expose the terrible evils of lynching. A school teacher from Memphis 
who put herself through college, she became one of the Nation's first 
female newspaper editors. A civil rights crusader from her teens, Ida 
Wells committed herself to the fight against lynching after a mob 
murdered her friends--Thomas Moss, Calvin McDowell, and Henry Stewart.
  These three men, driven by their entrepreneurial energy, opened a 
small grocery store that catered primarily to African Americans. They 
took business away from nearby White business owners. Driven by hatred 
and jealousy, by rage and prejudice, an angry White mob stormed their 
store. Acting in self-defense, Wells' three friends fired on the 
rioters. The police arrested the grocers for defending themselves. The 
mob kidnapped all three from jail, and all three were murdered in the 
Memphis streets.
  These brutal murders galvanized Wells into action. Her righteous 
anger, blistering editorials, and strong sense of justice further 
enraged Memphis bigots. They burned her newspaper presses and 
threatened to murder her. Wells moved to Chicago and became one of that 
city's leading social crusaders. Wells' book ``Southern Horrors: Lynch 
Law in All Its Phases'' and her dogged investigative reporting exposed 
millions of Americans to the brutality of lynching. In a nation rife 
with racism and prejudice, Ida Wells and her colleagues began the civil 
rights movement. They helped bring us integration. They paved the way 
for equality. And they taught all of us that racism is a terrible evil.
  After many years of struggle, after many setbacks, and after much 
heartache, they won. From President Truman's Executive order ending 
segregation in the Armed Forces to the 1964 Civil Rights Act, a series 
of civil rights laws moved the Nation toward legal equality.
  But no civil rights law is as important to our Nation's political 
process as the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
  It enfranchised millions of African-American voters and it brought 
many black politicians into office.
  Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act will be up for reauthorization in 
2007. President Reagan signed into law a 25-year reauthorization in 
1982.
  Section 4 contains a temporary preclearance provision that applies to 
Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas, 
Virginia, and parts of Alaska, Arizona, Hawaii, Idaho, and North 
Carolina.
  These States must submit any voting changes to the U.S. Department of 
Justice for preclearance. If the Department of Justice concludes that 
the change weakens the voting strength of minority voters, it can 
refuse to approve the change.
  While I recognize that this can impose a bureaucratic burden on 
States acting in good faith, we must continue our Nation's work to 
protect voting rights. That is why we need to extend the Voting Rights 
Act.
  Quite simply, we owe civil rights pioneers such as Ida Wells nothing 
less.
  I hope the day will come when racism and prejudice are relegated 
completely to our past. This resolution is a positive step in the right 
direction.
  Transforming our Nation requires that we recall our history--all of 
it. We can become a better people by celebrating the glories of our 
past--but also our imperfections. That includes continuing to do our 
utmost to protect voting rights for all Americans.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, this past Friday, I was in Cincinnati. I had 
some business to conduct there, but my plane got in early, and I had 
some time on my hands. My staff said: Would you like to go to a new 
museum that opened in August of 2004? I said: Sure, I will be happy to. 
It is a museum that is dedicated to forcing us to remember what went on 
in the dark days of the history of this country dealing with slavery.
  The museum is done so well. You walk in, and the first thing you see 
is this large facility--big, tall--and it is a facility that was used 
in the late 1700s, 1800s for holding slaves. The upper story--using 
that term loosely--was for the men and the bottom for the women. They 
still have the shackles there, the chains that were used to hold these 
people. They have the writing on the walls used to describe what these 
human beings were worth, how much money, and for what they could be 
used.
  So it is very appropriate that I returned to Washington today since 
we are going to debate some legislation that is very pertinent.
  In this body's two centuries of history, we have done many great 
things. We sent men to the Moon, created schools for our kids, fed the 
hungry, and lent a helping hand to struggling families. But today I 
rise to speak

[[Page 12262]]

about one of this institution's great failures--its shameful refusal to 
enact antilynching legislation in the first half of the 20th century.
  Today, one of the saddest chapters in our Chamber's history will come 
to a close when we apologize for the Senate's inaction. I join my 
colleagues in apologizing to the deceased victims of lynchings and 
their surviving loved ones. I pray this Chamber will never fail to see 
this injustice that was done. We must realize and understand what it 
was. It was an injustice.
  While the exact number is impossible to determine, records indicate 
that since 1882--the best records we have--4,749 individuals have died 
from lynching, men and women, mostly men, and most of them by far 
African Americans. These Americans were killed, tortured, mutilated, 
and maimed with near impunity. Most were denied due process under the 
law, and their killers rarely--very rarely--faced consequences for 
their actions, as indicated by the prayer offered today by our Chaplain 
which indicated little less than 1 percent who saw some retribution in 
the courts. The Senate's inaction helped create a culture of acceptance 
toward these heinous crimes against humanity.
  Photos from this book--``Without Sanctuary'' is the name of the 
book--a book of lynchings that occurred in America, and it is depicted 
in photographs--photographs that are so hard to accept--is the 
principal reason we are here today, this one book.
  This book shows men, women, children donning their finest clothing 
and gleefully posing in front of deceased people who had been hanged 
and, prior to being hanged, often mutilated. Even worse, many photos 
were turned into postcards, until 1908, when the Senate at least 
amended U.S. Postal Service regulations to forbid the mailing of 
lynching photographs made into postcards. Think about that.
  American history is rich with stories of heroes and heroines, as well 
as patriots, of patriotism. However, the lynching of so many Americans 
will always be a stain on our great democracy. Only after passage of 
time, only after growing pressure from civil rights organizations, only 
after over 200 antilynching bills, condemnation by foreign nations, 
petitions from seven U.S. Presidents, and outcries from the African-
American press and some mainstream publications did the occurrence of 
this horrible act decline. But this book, published in 2000, is the 
real reason we are moving today.
  It is my sincere hope that the relatives of the victims of these 
horrible acts will accept this body's sincere apology and take solace 
in the Senate finally recognizing its shortcomings.
  It is also my sincere hope that the Senate does not stop with its 
apologies. There is much more to be done. We can honor the legacy of 
these victims by continuing to confront the challenges in civil rights 
before us in enacting legislation that will protect, for example, 
voting rights and improve the lives of so many Americans.
  First, I encourage my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to stand 
strong in support of reauthorizing the Voting Rights Act.
  Second, disparities between African Americans and Whites in health 
care and education are still too great. I encourage this body to 
support legislation that will improve health care among African 
Americans, improve educational resources, and provide opportunities for 
African Americans in many different avenues.
  Finally, I ask the families of the victims of these terrible crimes 
to accept the Senate's apology, and I pray that my colleagues will act 
positively on upcoming legislation to honor the souls of those passed 
and that they may finally rest in peace.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Chafee). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Ms. LANDRIEU. I ask unanimous consent that the debate time on the 
Griffith nomination be yielded back and the Senate proceed to 
legislative session in order to consider S. Res. 39.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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