[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 2]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page 2005]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




               HONORING THE 99TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE NAACP

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. JOE SESTAK

                            of pennsylvania

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, February 12, 2008

  Mr. SESTAK. Madam Speaker, for nearly a century, the National 
Association of the Advancement of Colored People, NAACP, has been 
fighting for the civil rights and dignity of people of color. As a 
result of their efforts, our great nation today can boast of a society 
more diverse, productive, prosperous and hopeful than any in history.
  However, today's hope is a far cry from the violence, segregation and 
discrimination that inspired Mary White Ovington, William English 
Walling and Dr. Henry Moskowitz to meet in a little room of a New York 
apartment and commit the fledgling NAACP to the most important social 
movement in our national history. Today, the spirit of those brave and 
patriotic founders' lives on in leaders like Dr. Joan Duval-Flynn, 
President of the Media, Pennsylvania NAACP Chapter. I rise today to 
congratulate Dr. Duval-Flynn for her vision, intelligence and 
dedication. She leads a chapter of the NAACP borne of a violent act in 
the early 1920's and committed to making Delaware County, Pennsylvania 
a 21st century community where people of all colors and creeds live 
together as neighbors, friends and first class citizens.
  In my first year representing the 7th District of Pennsylvania, the 
NAACP's magazine, The Crisis, featured an article titled ``Women 
Warriors, Female Combatants Sacrifice Lives for Country.'' That article 
gave me cause to consider all of the extraordinary women and men of 
color I had the privilege of serving with during more than thirty years 
in our Armed Forces.
  For that privilege and honor, I owe--and our Nation owes--a personal 
debt of gratitude to Dr. Duval-Flynn, Mary White Ovington and countless 
other leaders and members of the NAACP. As W.E.B. Du Bois wrote in his 
first editorial page of The Crisis, in 1910, that voice of the NAACP 
``will stand for the right of men, irrespective of color or race, for 
the highest ideals of American democracy, and for the reasonable but 
earnest and persistent attempt to gain these rights and realize these 
ideals.'' Dr. Duval-Flynn has continued that tradition. I am proud to 
know and work with this remarkable leader, Dr. Joan Duval-Flynn, and 
with the NAACP who gave us leaders such as Dr. Joan Duval-Flynn.
  Founded on February 12, 1909, the NAACP is the nation's oldest and 
largest civil rights organization. It has worked successfully with 
allies of all races who believe in, and stand for, the principles of 
civil rights on which the organization was founded.
  The NAACP's legacy includes historic events as well as distinguished 
leaders, such as W.E.B. Dubois and other civil rights luminaries such 
Rosa Parks, Medgar Evers, and Thurgood Marshall, who served as special 
counsel for the NAACP when he argued the historic U.S. Supreme Court 
case of Brown V. Board of Education, a landmark victory for equality 
that outlawed segregation in schools.
  Our obligation to African Americans and all Americans is to honor the 
accomplishments of the past by acting in a substantive manner to 
improve lives for tomorrow. Thank you, NAACP, and thank you, Dr. Joan 
Duval-Flynn.

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