Designating Certain Buildings of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
DESIGNATING CERTAIN BUILDINGS OF CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION -- (House of Representatives - December 13, 2005)
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Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I presume this is either All Saints Day or the Christmas season because we are certainly honoring two saints, and I do not think there will be a single ``nay'' vote on this bill. I am pleased to endorse these bills to name buildings respectively after Mother Teresa and Rosa Parks.
As if a bio was needed for Mother Teresa, the record probably should reveal some of the background of Mother Teresa who began life as an ordinary human being like the rest of us. She just went on to sainthood even before she died.
She was born in Macedonia in August of 1910. At the age of 18, she left home to join the Sisters of Loreto, an Irish community of nuns conducting missionary work in India. In 1931, after training in Dublin, Sister Teresa arrived in India, where from 1931 to 1948 she taught at St. Mary's High School in Calcutta. In 1948, Sister Teresa received permission to leave the high school to minister to the poorest of the poor in the slums of Calcutta. In the ensuing half century, she created a legacy of human charity and good works that have become the standard for all to emulate.
In 1959, she received permission to start her own order known as the Missionaries of Charity whose primary task is to look after those left with no one prepared to look after them.
The Society of Missionaries has spread all over the world, including the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. The society provides help to the world's needy in a number of countries and houses alcoholics, the homeless and AIDS sufferers.
Mother Teresa's work is acclaimed throughout the world. Her awards and distinctions are countless. In 1979, she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of her work to bring help to suffering humanity. She is one of only nine women to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Respect for individual dignity and each person's innate value are at the core of her beliefs and provide the basis for her charitable work. Her order receives the dying, the destitute, abandoned lepers and the poor. Her work and her personal philosophy is grounded in her Christian faith. It is certainly proper and appropriate that the building located on the campus for the Centers for Disease Control at 1600 Clifton Road, Atlanta, Georgia, be named in Mother Teresa's honor.
Also, at the same location, a building dedicated to Rosa Parks will be identified as the Rosa Parks Emergency Operations Center.
We honor Rosa Parks for her courage and conviction. By now, Mr. Speaker, we all know the story of that December evening in 1955, 50 years ago, when a 42-year-old black woman riding a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, refused to give up her seat to a white passenger on demand. Montgomery segregation laws were complex and deeply humiliating, but Rosa Parks' personal and quiet strength and sense of justice changed not only the laws of Montgomery she challenged, but also the laws of the United States of America.
For her boldness, she was arrested and found guilty of disorderly conduct. These actions led to the famous Montgomery bus boycott that lasted over a year and ultimately to a Supreme Court decision that banned segregation in city public transit systems, led also to the great civil rights laws enacted in the 1960s and led also to the civil rights movement itself which followed her lead and took up the struggle with an army of black and white nonviolent activists working in imitation of Rosa Parks.
It is impossible to overstate the impact of her actions in defiance of segregation. Her story has become part of the American story and of the story of Congress itself where she became the first woman to lie in State in the Rotunda in November.
I am honored to support this bill that acknowledges the contributions of two exceptional women.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
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Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
I understand the gentleman's point. But I do not understand this bill to be a retort or a response to Senate action. I understand it to be an affirmative act on the part of the bipartisan House of Representatives. The only reason I raise it is because we are not a party to whatever is the discussion that has gone on on that. I do understand the concern, and I listened to it.
But I would not want anything to take away from the way I opened my remarks about All Saints Day and the Christmas season because I think the gentleman perhaps did not mean it. And if I may so, by inserting that, and I am not questioning it, I have no personal knowledge of it, it leaves, I think, an unfortunate impression that I do not think the gentleman means to leave. Perhaps it should have been inserted into the RECORD if the gentleman thought so.
Mr. KING of Iowa. Will the gentlewoman yield?
Ms. NORTON. I will be happy to yield to the gentleman from Iowa.
Mr. KING of Iowa. I thank the gentlewoman. I am referencing House rule XXI. And my point was to illustrate what can come from that. But also it is my emphasis to be here today to honor the two people that we hope to name these buildings after, and that is the focus of my remarks.
Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman made that clear. I appreciate that the gentleman made that clear. I was trying to think, as my colleague spoke, about whether or not we have named things after Members of the House while they were still here.
I had a young man, kid from D.C., some people brought him in today, along with a whole group of students, and I showed him pictures, I explained pictures on my wall that when I came to Congress, instead of putting some fake Picassos, I put pictures of old Washington. I went to the Library of Congress and to the D.C. Historical Society. And this child interrupted me, he is a high school student. He said, why do you not have a big picture of yourself there? It simply provided an opportunity for me to let him know that he ought to wonder about a Member of Congress who had a big picture of herself in her office. I do not know who she ought to have, and I did not suggest to him who she ought to have.
But in this season, when we have the opportunity, and I was called, literally, only a couple of hours ago to say would I manage a bill that would name buildings at the Centers for Disease Control against these two women, I said, well, here is one that I know this is only love and praise and I really think we should rest on that, whatever is the predicament that the gentleman discussed.
And I do not mean to cast any aspersion upon what he said because he is talking about matters that are of some concern, insertions into the bill and so forth. But that is not the spirit in which I came forward on this side to offer this bill, and I do not think it is the gentleman's spirit, and I do not think it is the spirit of the House today. And Merry Christmas everybody.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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