[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 10]
[House]
[Page 14617]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  2100
               HONORING THE MEMORY OF PARREN J. MITCHELL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cummings) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Speaker, it gives me great honor this evening to 
talk about my good friend and mentor, former Congressman Parren 
Mitchell.
  I said today at his memorial service that Parren Mitchell was without 
a doubt a man of great humility. He was a mentor of mine; and many, 
many years ago we came in contact with each other. One of the things 
that he made clear was that being in elected office is not about 
seeking to be a celebrity. It must be about service. He was one who 
made it his business to serve his constituents to the nth degree.
  If you were to ride around the 7th Congressional District, much of 
which is in the inner city of Baltimore, you would hear people, from 
presidents of corporations to the folks working in the markets to the 
bank tellers, call him PJ. They called him PJ not out of disrespect. 
They called him PJ because of their love for him and because of his 
humble spirit.
  It was not unusual for Parren Mitchell to show up at a church or show 
up at a funeral or show up at somebody's Eagle Scout ceremony. He was 
the kind of guy who spent his lifetime trying to lift up other people.
  The interesting thing, too, is that he did something for African 
American young people that very few have been able to do. When he ran 
for office in 1968, he lost by about 5,000 votes. Now, in many 
instances, if somebody got a total of 15,000 votes, which he did, and 
lost by 5,000, which he did, they would give up.
  Two years later, Parren Mitchell came back and in 1970 was elected by 
a tremendous landslide margin of 38 votes, and that was so significant 
for us because back then I was in high school, and it showed me that an 
African American could be elected to the Congress of the United States 
of America.
  In other words, what Parren Mitchell showed us was what we thought to 
be impossible was possible, and since that time we have seen Kweisi 
Mfume come to this body, and yours truly, and we've seen African 
American Congressmen from all over this country, and I would venture to 
say that he had a tremendous impact on others, in the Hispanic 
community and women and many others, who may have thought at one time 
it was almost impossible to come here.
  And so we pay tribute to this great man. His record is clear: a 
staunch advocate for small business; a staunch advocate for those who 
have been left out; a staunch advocate for making sure that civil 
rights are adhered to.
  And finally, let me say this, Mr. Speaker, as I summarize Parren's 
life in a written piece for the Afro-American newspaper, Parren 
Mitchell was one who built bridges to opportunities and tore down walls 
which caused people not to be included in this society.

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