[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 13]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page 18019]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         EDITH SAVAGE-JENNINGS

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. RUSH D. HOLT

                             of new jersey

                    in the house of representatives

                      Thursday, November 18, 2010

  Mr. HOLT. Madam Speaker, I rise today to commend Edith Savage-
Jennings, a paragon of the Civil Rights Movement whose accomplishments 
on behalf of the movement are surpassed only by her humility about 
them. ``It was just the work that was called for,'' she has said. As I 
understand, she is currently working on a book to be entitled ``Behind 
Closed Doors,'' she said, because that is where the most important work 
on any movement is done.
  Let me open the door for you, just a little, so you will come to know 
and appreciate this paragon of the Civil Rights Movement as I do. 
First, she started early--when she was 9. She would tell her mother she 
was going to the library, but instead she would go to the Statehouse in 
Trenton and watch the proceedings of the New Jersey Assembly from the 
balcony. Despite getting in trouble for that fib, she persisted in her 
efforts to learn and to lead.
  When she was 13, movie theaters in Trenton were still segregated. 
Black moviegoers--like Edith--were required to sit in the balcony. But 
she went to the theater with several friends, including future Mayor of 
New York, David Dinkins, and they sat downstairs. When asked to move to 
the balcony, they refused. And she's been making history quietly, but 
forcefully, ever since.
  Whatever road the civil rights struggle took her down, she did her 
best. In 1963, she was one of six woman asked by President Kennedy and 
Attorney General Robert Kennedy to ferret out particular areas of 
unrest in the struggle to desegregate schools in Mississippi. She 
became one of the ``Wednesdays Women,'' who travelled in interracial 
teams to Mississippi in 1964 to advance the cause of desegregation 
through what you might call white-glove diplomacy. Accompanied by Helen 
Meyner, wife of New Jersey Governor Bob Meyner, they landed in 
Mississippi, only to be greeted by white men spitting on the floor in 
front of them. ``They'd never seen a black woman and a white woman 
travelling together,'' she said.
  They continued on. On Wednesdays, they would bring supplies to rural 
communities on the front lines of the struggle to end segregation. On 
Thursdays, dressed in heels, pearls and white gloves, they would meet 
white and black women for tea and cookies to discuss peaceful ways to 
desegregate the elementary schools and to resolve the white women's 
suspicions about the Civil Rights Movement. On this visit, as Mrs. 
Meyner introduced herself, she shook everyone's hand. In another quiet 
act of rebellion, Edith took off her white glove, and the women 
wouldn't shake her hand. But the schools were desegregated.
  Over the years, she has been praised and followed for her leadership 
skills and prowess. She was introduced to Martin Luther King, Jr., in 
1957 at a rally in Trenton because, the minister at Shiloh Baptist 
Church said at the time, she's ``a great fundraiser.'' She became a 
lifelong friend of the Kings. In 1964, she accompanied Fannie Lou Hamer 
onto the floor of the Democratic National Convention, where she 
delivered her famous ``I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired'' 
speech. She has visited the White House under five different 
Presidents. She was close friends with Rosa Parks, and brought her and 
many other civil rights leaders to Trenton. She's been a member of the 
NAACP for life, and won more than 80 awards for her selfless, tireless 
work. In 2005, her name was added to the Wall of Tolerance in 
Montgomery, Alabama, to honor her 50 years of civil rights service. 
Last year, she was inducted into the National Civil Rights Museum, 
located at the hotel in Memphis where King was assassinated, and the 
National Park Service Archives for Black Women's History in Washington 
DC.
  But her humility is one of her most endearing qualities. When 
President Kennedy called her to action in 1963, she didn't believe it 
was him. So he put his brother Bobby on the phone and said ``Bobby, say 
hello to Mrs. Savage so she'll know I'm the President.'' When she was 
inducted into the National Civil Rights Museum, among other personal 
items she donated was a pair of red loafers she had worn in 1968 while 
demonstrating in the rain and mud at the Poor People's Campaign 
commemorating Martin Luther King, Jr. The shoes still bore the mud from 
that day. ``I put them in a box [and] never pulled them out,'' she said 
``but I saved them because to me they were part of a historical 
situation.''
  I am proud to say Edith Savage-Jennings has been a resident of 
Trenton since the age of 2. At the mass in her honor after her 
induction into the National Civil Rights Museum she said ``I want 
people to know that no one does this alone.'' Even so, the particular 
manner, the quiet resoluteness, and the tide of contributions of some 
simply stand out. Edith Savage-Jennings is one such person.

                          ____________________