Directing Office of Historians to Compile Oral Histories from Members Involved in Alabama Civil Rights Marches

Floor Speech

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Mr. COHEN. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank also Representatives Sewell and ROBY for sponsoring this resolution and Congressman Lewis for his life.

This is a historic resolution, for the work and the memories need to be preserved. I, like Congressman Sewell, am here because of the work of Congressman Lewis and other civil rights leaders, making this for a better America.

I didn't think I needed to go on the pilgrimage because I'm from Memphis and I've been to the Mason Temple where Dr. King made his last speech; and been to Lorraine Motel, the national civil rights museum, on many occasions; and AFSCME hall where he rallied workers, now named for Jerry Wurf.

But when I went to Birmingham, when I went to Montgomery, when I went to Selma, I realized that there was much more history that I needed to know, and there was a way to be filled with the spirit of the civil rights movement, which one is when one goes to the Rosa Parks Museum, the Dexter Street Church, the 16th Street Church, the Civil Rights Institute, and the bridge.

It's hard to fathom the way the world was in 1965, but that was only a short number of years ago. This country started with a history of slavery, and it was accepted by the Founding Fathers and others as the way things were. The Founding Fathers were great men, and they wrote words that were great, but they were without absolute meaning because they accepted, as a given, that African Americans should be slaves and women shouldn't have equality. It took a civil war to change some of that, and then it took John Lewis and civil rights workers to change the Jim Crow laws that followed up, that didn't accept the outcome of the war and continued a segregated society that said African Americans weren't equal, couldn't go in public places and public accommodations and public restaurants and transit, just like others.

Well, that changed, and the people who changed that, the civil rights workers, the marchers, the sit-ins, the Freedom Riders--Bob Filner was a Freedom Rider and was arrested, a Congressperson--those people made the promise that was given fulfilled.

It's still a work. I introduced and this House passed in 2007 an apology for slavery and Jim Crow. It took till 2007 for this House to pass it, and I appreciate the fact that when I did introduce it and it passed, that there were two Republican sponsors, but there were just two Republican sponsors.

This year, I have H.R. 3866, which recognizes all civil rights workers with a Congressional Gold Medal. I'm sorry to say that, to this date, there's not a single Republican sponsor. There should be. Civil rights is as Republican as it is Democrat. The party of Lincoln, as did the party of Kennedy, provided civil rights. And in 1965, when that Voting Rights Act passed, there were people like Everett Dirksen who cast important votes.

I urge my Republican colleagues to support this resolution, to support H.R. 3688, and honor the civil rights workers who had to fight their country for their rights and privileges.

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