Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the Senate bill (S. 188) to revise the short title of the Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks, and Coretta Scott King Voting Rights Act Reauthorization…
Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the Senate bill (S. 188) to revise the short title of the Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks, and Coretta Scott King Voting Rights Act Reauthorization and Amendments Act of 2006.
Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the bill under consideration.
And I now yield myself such time as I may consume.
Madam Speaker, I rise in strong support of S. 188, a companion bill to H.R. 6250, providing for revising the short title of the Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks, and Coretta Scott King Voting Rights Act Reauthorization and Amendments Act of 2006.
On January 31, 2007, I introduced H.R. 745 to add Barbara Jordan and Cesar Chavez. On June 12, 2008, I authored and introduced the House companion to S. 188, H.R. 6250, in order to add numbers of individuals who deserve the recognition of this legislation.
I would like to thank Senator Salazar on the Senate side for his leadership on this issue. And certainly I would like to thank the chairman of the full committee, Mr. Conyers, and the ranking member, Mr. Smith, for their leadership and collaboration, along with the chairman and ranking member of the subcommittee. I also want to thank Mr. Keenan Keller of the Judiciary Committee staff and all the staff who worked with him, Mr. Yohannes Tsehai and Mr. Arthur D. Sidney of my staff, for their work on the House bill and for their work on bringing this bill as quickly as possible to the floor.
The bill before us adds the names of Cesar E. Chavez, Barbara C. Jordan, William C. Velasquez and Dr. Hector P. Garcia to the short title. It is only an addition of names. It is not a deletion of any names. It is adding to the name portion of the bill only.
These great people are pillars in the Nation's struggle for civil rights, equality and justice for all, and I strongly support the bill.
Allow me, Madam Speaker, to share the humble beginnings of all of the individuals that have come before us to be named now to this very important bill, a bill of which we know was really borne in the sweat and tears of those who struggled in the civil rights movement. Many lost their lives in this battle. This reauthorization that occurred in the last session, and the session before is a testimony to the struggle.
Cesar Estrada Chavez was born of humble beginnings on March 31, 1927, in Yuma, Arizona. Early in his life, Mr. Chavez was forced to recognize the harsh realities of racism that all too often plagued communities of color. After his family's home and land were taken from them, Mr. Chavez knew firsthand what it meant to be a victim of gross injustice. Yet despite this and similar experiences of discrimination, Mr. Chavez was not deterred. He often said that ``the love for justice that is in us is not only the best part of our being but also the most true to our nature.''
At only 10 years old, Mr. Chavez became a migrant farmworker. He attended 38 different schools before quitting at the end of the eighth grade to support his family full time.
In 1945, he joined the U.S. Navy and served in the western Pacific during the end of World War II. After completing his military service, Mr. Chavez returned to his roots, laboring in the fields.
Mr. Chavez was unwavering in his activities in voter registration campaigns. He is truly warranting of this honor today.
By day, Mr. Chavez picked apricots in an orchard outside of San Jose. And be reminded that he served in the United States Navy. But he picked apricots in this orchard, and by night he was actively involved in galvanizing voter registration drives. In 1952, Mr. Chavez was a full- time organizer with the Chicago-based Community Service Organization (CSO), not only coordinating voter registration drives, but battling racial and economic discrimination against Chicano residents and organizing CSO chapters across California and Arizona, as well.
In 1968, Chavez conducted a 25-day fast to reaffirm the United Farm Workers' commitment to non-violence. In the process, Mr. Chavez gained the support of the late Senator Robert F. Kennedy and was propelled onto the national political scene. Kennedy called Cesar Chavez ``one of the heroic figures of our time'' and actually flew to be with Mr. Chavez when he ended his fast.
On August 8, 1994, Mr. Chavez became the second Mexican American to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the United States. The award was presented posthumously by then- President Bill Clinton.
Mr. Chavez dedicated his life to improving the working conditions for the poor and exploited. He worked on behalf of the migrant workers in the western United States. He worked also tirelessly to ensure that Hispanic Americans were involved in the political process. He is deserving of this honor. And we commend him as we move this legislation forward.
The next named person to have her name listed on the Voting Rights bill is Barbara Charline Jordan. Congresswoman Jordan was a friend to many, a mentor to me, and an icon. The late honorable Congresswoman Barbara Jordan represented the 18th Congressional District. She was the maiden holder of this seat. After this opportunity was given through the Voting Rights Act of 1965, I am now privileged to serve, and she was one of the first two African Americans from the South to be elected to the House of Representatives since Reconstruction.
Barbara Jordan was known for her eloquence but also to many for her quiet thoughtfulness and seriousness in the legislative process. Barbara Jordan was a renaissance woman, eloquent, fearless and peerless in her pursuit of justice and equality.
I pay tribute also to her sister who has carried on her legacy by presenting herself to the public and helping people understand Barbara's legacy, that is to a dear friend, Ms. Rosemary McGowan, who lives in Houston, Texas, today. All of her family grew up and lived in Fifth Ward, and we were with them just a few weeks ago when they showed us the remnants of where they lived. It is now railroad tracks. But we will never have their history extinguished.
Barbara Jordan exhorted all of us to strive for the excellence, stand fast for justice and fairness, and yield to no one in the manner of defending the Constitution and upholding the most sacred principles of a democratic government. To Barbara Jordan, the Constitution was a very profound document, one to be upheld.
On January 17, 1996, Barbara Jordan died too early, at the young age of 59. On that day, Texas and the Nation lost one of its finest daughters, a woman who had served the people of Houston and Harris County in State and national government for over a decade. And with Barbara Jordan's passing, America lost one of its finest citizens.
Barbara Jordan's voice and eloquence was one of a kind, and so was she.
From her outspokenness during Watergate, to her ethics back in Texas to improve transparency, accountability and ethics in government, no stand was too controversial or too unpopular for Barbara Jordan to take. If she believed that it was the right thing to do, she did it. She was not afraid to take unpopular stands. And she often ruffled the feathers of friends and foes alike.
The Washington Post, too, half-jokingly described Barbara Jordan as ``the first black woman everything.'' And a Cosmopolitan magazine survey of 700 political opinions in 1975 put Jordan at the top of the list of women they would like to see become President.
And in 1966 she became the first African American woman elected to the Texas State Senate. She was the only woman in that legislative session.
In 1972, she came to the United States Congress. She worked on worker's compensation and she also amended the Voting Rights Act to include Mexican Americans in Texas and other southwestern States and to extend its authorities to those States where minorities had been denied the right to vote.
She obviously was renowned for her Watergate work and also her 1976 speech to the Democratic Convention. One of Professor Jordan's colleagues paid her the ultimate compliment. ``She pushed her students. She said, `You know, you have an obligation. You owe something for what you have, and you need to pay it back.' '' That was Barbara Jordan, continuing to give public service.
She ended her life as a professor at the Lyndon Baines Johnson School. In the tradition of Frederick Douglass, Martin Luther King and Thurgood Marshall, she believed that the Constitution should be upheld.
We honor her, deservedly so, by naming her to the Voting Rights Act of 1965, reauthorized.
The next named person is William C. Velasquez, also a Texan, affectionately known as ``Willie.'' He paved the way for his generation and future generations of Hispanics to empower themselves through voter registration, political empowerment, economic self-reliance and education.
Mr. Velasquez was one of the founding members of the Mexican American Youth Organization, MAYO, a Chicano youth organization aimed at social action. His role in MAYO led to his becoming Texas' first statewide coordinator of the El Movimiento Social de la Raza Unida, the precursor of La Raza Unida Party. His involvement with the Latino organization was extensive. In 1968, as boycott coordinator for the United Farm Workers, he organized strikes in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas.
After leaving the UFW, he became the founder and director of the Mexican-American Unity Council in San Antonio, Texas. In 1970, he was named field director of the Southwest Council of La Raza.
From 1972 to July 1974, he concentrated his efforts on building the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project. That is what so many of us know him for, SVREP. Little notice was given when Velasquez opened the doors to SVREP in 1974, seated on a folding chair behind a small desk calling from a borrowed rotary telephone to spur Mexican Americans into politics.
Mr. Velasquez's work of empowering all Americans through political participation by his nonpartisan voter registration, voter education, candidate training, get-out-the-vote efforts, this work of SVREP continues as it began through his work. He enlisted the aid of community organizers. Together they launched hundreds of voter registration and get-out-the-vote GOTV campaigns throughout the Southwest.
The legacy of Mr. Velasquez is apparent. Since its inception, his organization has cultivated 50,000 community leaders, successfully litigated 85 voting rights lawsuits, and has conducted 2,300 nonpartisan voter registration and GOTV campaigns. Consequently, voter registration has grown over the years from 2.4 million registered Latinos in 1974 to almost 12 million nationwide.
Upon news of his death, the Congress adjourned its session for the day, symbolically illustrating his single-handed effect on our political process. President Clinton posthumously awarded Mr. Velasquez the Presidential Medal of Freedom, stating that he was driven by an unwavering belief that every American should have a role in our democracy and share in the opportunities of our great Nation, adding that Mr. Velasquez made this a greater country.
I agree with him. It is for this reason, Madam Speaker, that we are honored today to be able to add Mr. William ``Willie'' C. Velasquez in the short title of the Voting Rights Act, now reauthorized, but the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Our next named person, Dr. Hector P. Garcia, was an interesting and strong Texan. Dr. Hector P. Garcia was a Mexican immigrant who became a doctor, soldier, war hero and presidential confidante. He dedicated his life to advocating for the education, civil rights, labor rights and human rights of our community by struggling against racism and injustice. His life is an example for the younger generation.
Dr. Garcia received many honors during his life-long fight for veterans rights. He is a giant in Texas. He is well-known, as we have found, throughout the Nation, throughout the veterans efforts that have come about, particularly representing Latinos. He is a giant. His fight for veterans rights and his struggle against discrimination in housing, education and voting rights is renowned.
In 1968, President Lyndon B. Johnson made him the first Mexican to serve on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. Johnson also appointed him Alternate Ambassador to the United Nations to promote better relations with Latin America and Spain. Dr. Garcia served Presidents John F. Kennedy and Jimmy Carter as an adviser.
President Ronald Reagan awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Nation's highest civilian honor. Pope John Paul II recognized him with the Equestrian Order of Pope Gregory the Great. President Clinton eulogized him as a national hero.
The Treasury Department's new $75 Series I U.S. Savings Bond bears Dr. Garcia's portrait. The eight Americans depicted on the bonds, which debuted on September 1, 2007, were chosen for their individual achievements and service, and, for the first time, to reflect the Nation's racial and ethnic diversity. Dr. Garcia is the only Hispanic. Other honorees include General George C. Marshall and the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King.
Congress honored Dr. Garcia, who died on July 26, 1996, at the age of 82, by passing a bill in August 1996 that made the American G.I. Forum a Congressionally chartered veterans organization. Dr. Garcia founded the organization in 1948, and today it is the Nation's largest Hispanic veterans group. The charter status recognizes the G.I. Forum as a peer of the American Legion.
Dr. Garcia was born in a Mexican village in 1914 to a college professor and a schoolteacher. They fled to Texas in 1918 to escape the Mexican Revolution. He was one of seven children, six of whom became doctors. He graduated from the University of Texas Medical School, joined the Army in World War II and served in North Africa and Italy as an infantryman and combat engineer until the Army officials found out that he was a doctor. He earned the Bronze Star Medal with six battle stars in Italy.
A disturbing incident in 1949 convinced Dr. Garcia that the Forum needed to fight for more than veterans rights. Army Private Felix Longoria was killed on June 14, 1945, while on patrol in the Philippines to flush out retreating Japanese. It took nearly four years to identify and return his remains to his family. A funeral director in Three Rivers, Texas, told the family that the Anglo community wouldn't stand for his remains to lie in the chapel for a wake, but he offered to arrange for Longoria's burial in the segregated Mexican cemetery separated by barbed wire.
Private Longoria's widow called Dr. Garcia for help, who then contacted the funeral home and asked permission to use the chapel. The director told him no Mexican American had ever used the chapel and he wouldn't allow it because it might offend the whites. Dr. Garcia went on to talk about this issue and to fight against it, and ultimately he prevailed when many noticed that the State of Texas, which loomed so large on the map, looked so small tonight.
So within 24 hours the founder of the newly organized American G.I. Forum received a telegram from then Senator Lyndon B. Johnson, who expressed his regret about what occurred, and therefore he made arrangements to have Felix Longoria buried with full military honors in Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.
This is truly a story of a hero, and that is why we stand today to acknowledge Hector P. Garcia, who will be named to the short title of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. He will join these heroes, Cesar Chavez, Barbara Jordan, Willie Velasquez, and now Dr. Hector P. Garcia, for he has fought for those who could not speak for themselves to in essence have the opportunity to vote.
Madam Speaker, I ask my colleagues to support this legislation in honor of these magnificent individuals.
Madam Speaker, I rise in strong support of S. 188, to revise the short title of the Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks, and Coretta Scott King Voting Rights Act Reauthorization and Amendments Act of 2006. On January 31, 2007, I introduced H.R. 745 to add Barbara Jordan and Cesar Chavez. On June 12, 2008, I authored and introduced the House companion, H.R. 6250 to S. 188. I want to commend the author on the Senate side, Senator Salazar.
I would like to thank Mr. Keenan Keller, and Mr. Yohannes Tsehai and Mr. Arthur D. Sidney of my staff for their work on the House bill and for their work on bringing this bill quickly to the floor. The bill before us adds the names of Cesar E. Chavez, Barbara C. Jordan, William C. Velasquez, and Dr. Hector P. Garcia to the short title. These great people are pillars in the nation's struggle for civil rights, equality, and justice for all. I strongly support this bill.
cesar estrada chavez
Cesar Estrada Chavez was born of humble beginnings on March 31, 1927, near Yuma, Arizona. Early in life, Mr. Chavez was forced to recognize the harsh realities of racism that all too often plagued communities of color. After his family's home and land were taken from them, Mr. Chavez knew first hand what it meant to be the victim of gross injustice. Yet, despite this and similar experiences of discrimination, Mr. Chavez was not deterred. He often said that ``the love for justice that is in us is not only the best part of our being but also the most true to our nature.''
At only 10 years old, Mr. Chavez became a migrant farmworker. He attended 38 different schools before quitting at the end of the eighth grade to support his family full time.
In 1945, Mr. Chavez joined the US Navy and served in the Western Pacific during the end of World War II. After completing his military service, Mr. Chavez returned to his roots, laboring in the fields.
Mr. Chavez was unwavering in his activities in voter registration campaigns. By day, Mr. Chavez picked apricots in an orchard outside of San Jose; by night, he was actively involved in galvanizing voter registration drives. In 1952, Mr. Chavez was a full time organizer with the Chicago-based Community Service Organization (CSO), not only coordinating voter registration drives, but battling racial and economic discrimination against Chicano residents and organizing new CSO chapters across California and Arizona as well.
Mr. Chavez was also a passionate member of the labor movement in this country. In 1962, he moved his wife and eight young children to California, where he founded the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA), the first successful farm workers' union in U.S. history.
In 1968, Chavez conducted a 25-day fast to reaffirm the United Farm Workers commitment to non-violence. In the process, Mr. Chavez gained the support of the late Senator Robert F. Kennedy and was propelled onto the national political scene. Kennedy called Cesar Chavez ``one of the heroic figures of our time,'' and actually flew to be with Mr. Chavez when he ended his fast.
In 1991, Mr. Chavez received the Aguila Azteca (The Aztec Eagle), Mexico's highest award presented to people of Mexican heritage who have made significant contributions outside of Mexico. When he passed away on April 23, 1993, at the age of 66, he was the president of the United Farm Workers of America, AFL-CIO.
On August 8, 1994, Mr. Chavez became the second Mexican American to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the United States. The award was presented posthumously by then- President Bill Clinton.
Mr. Chavez dedicated his life to achieving better working conditions for the poor and the exploited migrant farmers in the western United States. He also tirelessly worked to ensure that Hispanic Americans were involved in the political process and were registered to vote. He is regarded as one of the most important people in the U.S. labor movement and in the Hispanic voter registration movement in this country. We honor his life and his legacy with the addition of his name on this important piece of legislation.
barbara charline jordan
Barbara Charline Jordan was a friend to many, a mentor to me and an icon. The late honorable Congresswoman Barbara Jordan represented the 18th Congressional District of Texas that I am now privileged to serve, and was one of the first two African-Americans from the South to be elected to the House of Representatives since Reconstruction.
Barbara Jordan was a renaissance woman, eloquent, fearless, and peerless in her pursuit of justice and equality. She exhorted all of us to strive for excellence, stand fast for justice and fairness, and yield to no one in the matter of defending the Constitution and upholding the most sacred principles of a democratic government. To Barbara Jordan, the Constitution was a very profound document, one to be upheld.
On January 17, 1996, Barbara Jordan died at the young age of 59. On that day, Texas lost one of its finest daughters--a woman who had served the people of Houston and Harris County in state and national government for over a decade. And with Barbara Jordan's passing, America lost one of its finest citizens.
Barbara Jordan's voice and eloquence were one of a kind. And so was she.
Her accomplishments and admirers were legion. As a statesman and as a teacher, Barbara Jordan transcended race, gender, class, and political affiliation. She was not afraid to take unpopular stands--and she often ruffled the feathers of friends and foes alike.
From her outspokenness during Watergate, to her efforts back in Texas to improve transparency, accountability, and ethics in government, no stand was too controversial or too unpopular for Barbara Jordan to take--if she believed that it was the right thing to do.
Her rise through the ranks of state and national politics compelled The Washington Post to half-jokingly describe Barbara Jordan as ``the first black woman everything.'' And a Cosmopolitan magazine survey of 700 political opinion leaders in 1975 put Jordan at the top of a list of women they would like see become President.
In 1966, she became the first African-American woman elected to the Texas state Senate. She was the only woman in that legislative session.
In 1972, she became the first African-American woman elected to Congress from Texas after Reconstruction. While in Washington, she served with distinction on the House Judiciary Committee.
As a public servant, Barbara Jordan sponsored bills that championed the cause of the poor and the disenfranchised. One of her most
important bills as state senator was the Workman's Compensation Act, which increased the maximum benefits paid to injured workers. As a congresswoman, she sponsored legislation to broaden the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to cover Mexican Americans in Texas and other southwestern states, and to extend its authority to those states where minorities had been denied the right to vote or had their rights restricted by unfair registration practices, such as literacy tests.
She gained national prominence for the position she took and the statement she made at the 1974 impeachment hearing of President Richard Nixon. In casting her ``yes'' vote, Jordan stated, ``My faith in the Constitution is whole, it is complete, it is total.''
In 1976, she was the first African-American woman to deliver a keynote address at the Democratic National Convention. She would deliver the keynote address again at the Democratic National Convention in 1992.
President Jimmy Carter considered her for Attorney General and U.N. Ambassador, but she chose to remain in Congress. She seriously considered challenging Sen. John Tower in 1978, but became ill and retired from politics.
Representative Jordan left Congress in 1979 to become Professor Jordan when she joined the faculty of the Lyndon Baines Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas. President Johnson was a mentor to Jordan. Fittingly, Professor Jordan held the endowed Lyndon B. Johnson Centennial Chair in National Policy.
One of Professor Jordan's colleagues paid her this ultimate compliment: ``She pushed her students. She said, `you know, you have an obligation. You owe something for what you have and you need to pay it back.' And I think they all caught that passion that she had for public service.''
Professor Jordan, reflecting on her service in Congress, offered this pearl: ``One sometimes gets the feeling that the Washington politician feels that all wisdom resides in the nation's capital. That is not the view of the people on the outside, the people I am now working with and communicating with. Distance has a way of lessening the impact of what the Federal Government does.'' Few truer words have ever been spoken.
As a distinguished professor at the LBJ School, Professor Jordan was able to have a major influence on the next generation of public officials. She impressed her students with her intellect and ability to inspire them to achieve excellence in the classroom, and to be committed to public service.
Barbara Jordan was a lawyer, legislator, scholar, author, and presidential adviser. She was immensely gifted, and used every bit of her talent and skill to address, improve, and dignify the conditions of human life. In the tradition of Frederick Douglass, Martin Luther King, and Thurgood Marshall, she challenged the Federal Government and the American people to uphold the principles set forth in the Constitution.
Today, we honor Barbara Jordan by including her name on the Voting Rights Act, an Act up which she personally worked. She sponsored legislation to broaden the Voting Rights Act of 1965 so that its promises would be extended to all Americans. For this, we celebrate her and her legacy.
Madam Speaker, I thank the distinguished gentleman. It is my hope that we will enthusiastically support this legislation in tribute to these outstanding Americans.
I yield back the balance of my time.
