[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 11]
[Senate]
[Pages 16135-16136]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     REMEMBERING HERMAN J. RUSSELL

  Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, on Saturday night of last week, Georgia, 
Atlanta, and America lost a great citizen.
  Herman J. Russell was one of the greatest African-American business 
leaders and civil rights leaders the world has ever known. He passed 
peacefully in his home after a short illness, but his legacy and his 
life will last forever--not just in the history books but indelibly on 
the skyline of our city.
  In 1952 Herman J. Russell started a small plastering company called 
H.J. Russell & Company. He had just graduated from Tuskegee Institute 
in Alabama, and he came to Georgia to make his fortune and his fame. He 
started out plastering walls and ceilings, and he finished his career 
building the Georgia Dome and the Georgia Pacific Building, the 1996 
Olympic Stadium, and buildings throughout the Atlanta skyline. While 
doing so he made a lot of money which he reinvested back not into his 
investments but into his community.
  In 1999 Herman Russell by himself gave $4 million to Morehouse 
College, Clark Atlanta University, and Georgia State University, and 
last December gave $1 million to Children's Healthcare of Atlanta to 
rebuild and help renovate the facility in downtown Atlanta for a 
hospital for children.
  He was always giving back more than he asked, but his greatest gift 
may have been the fact that he enabled Martin Luther King in the civil 
rights movement in the 1960s. It is well known that Dr. King would go 
to Herman's house to take refuge, take a swim and relax between the 
arduous times of the civil rights movement. Herman Russell would 
finance the movement and finance the movement's efforts so they could 
continue to move forward to bring about equality in the South. That is 
an indelible mark he left in history, not just for our State but for 
our country.
  Herman and his wife had three wonderful children. They are involved 
in the business today. Today the business is still flourishing, as it 
always has. In fact, the new Atlanta Dome Stadium, which will house the 
Falcons, is a $1.3 billion stadium in which the company was integrally 
involved.
  Our city has lost a great friend, a great African American, and a 
great entrepreneur--so great, he was recognized by the Atlanta Chamber 
as its first African-American member and its second African-American 
president. He

[[Page 16136]]

has been recognized by the Butler Street YMCA, the Atlanta and Georgia 
Business Council, and almost every entrepreneur group there is for his 
contributions to business and his contributions to investments in the 
State of Georgia.
  It is with great sadness tomorrow night that I will go to Ebenezer 
Baptist Church and be a part of the wake ceremony for Mr. Russell. But 
it is with great pride that I rise today on the Senate floor to make 
sure the Record indelibly recognizes the life, the times, and the 
contributions of Herman J. Russell.

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