I
107TH CONGRESS
2D SESSION
H. R. 5034
To authorize the President to posthumously award a gold medal on behalf
of the Congress in honor of Rev. Joseph A. De Laine, in recognition
of his contributions to the Nation.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
JUNE 27, 2002
Mr. CLYBURN (for himself, Mr. BROWN of South Carolina, Mr. DEMINT, Mr.
GRAHAM, Mr. SPRATT, and Mr. WILSON of South Carolina) introduced
the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Financial Serv-
ices
A BILL
To authorize the President to posthumously award a gold
medal on behalf of the Congress in honor of Rev. Joseph
A. De Laine, in recognition of his contributions to the
Nation.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SEC. 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Rev. Joseph A. De
Laine Congressional Gold Medal Act’’.
SEC. 2. FINDINGS.
The Congress finds the following:
(1) The Reverend Joseph Armstrong De Laine,
one of the true heroes of the civil rights struggle, led
a crusade to break down barriers in education in
South Carolina.
(2) The efforts of Rev. Joseph A. De Laine led
to the desegregation of public schools in the United
States, but forever scarred his own life.
(3) In 1949, Rev. Joseph A. De Laine, a min-
ister and principal, organized African-American par-
ents in Summerton, South Carolina, to petition the
school board for a bus for black students, who had
to walk up to 10 miles through corn and cotton
fields to attend a segregated school, while the white
children in the school district rode to and from
school in nice clean buses.
(4) In 1950, these same parents sued to end
public school segregation in Briggs v. Elliott (342
U.S. 350 (1952)), one of five cases that collectively
led to the landmark 1954 Supreme Court decision in
Brown v. Board of Education (347 U.S. 483
(1954)).
(5) Because of his participation in the desegre-
gation movement, Rev. Joseph A. De Laine was sub-
jected to repeated acts of domestic terror, in
which—
(A) he, along with two sisters and a niece,
lost their jobs;
(B) he fought off an angry mob;
(C) he received frequent death threats; and
(D) his church and his home were burned
to the ground.
(6) In October 1955, after Rev. Joseph A. De
Laine relocated to Florence County in South Caro-
lina, shots were fired at the De Laine home, and be-
cause Reverend De Laine fired back, to mark the
car, he was charged with assault and battery with
intent to kill.
(7) The shooting incident drove Rev. Joseph A.
De Laine from South Carolina to Buffalo, New
York, where he organized an African Methodist
Episcopal Church.
(8) Believing that he would not be treated fairly
by the judicial system in South Carolina if he re-
turned there, Rev. Joseph A. De Laine told the Fed-
eral Bureau of Investigation, ‘‘I am not running
from justice but injustice’’.
(9) Rev. Joseph A. De Laine died in Charlotte,
North Carolina in 1974.
(10) It was not until 2000—26 years after his
death and 45 years after the October 1955 inci-
dent—that Reverend De Laine was cleared of all
charges relating to the incident.
(11) Rev. Joseph A. De Laine was a humble
and fearless man who showed the Nation that all
people, regardless of the color of their skin, deserve
a first-rate education, a lesson from which the Na-
tion has benefited immeasurably.
(12) Rev. Joseph A. De Laine deserves rightful
recognition for the suffering that he and his family
endured to teach the Nation one of the great civil
rights lessons of the last century.
SEC. 3. CONGRESSIONAL GOLD MEDAL.
(a) PRESENTATION AUTHORIZED.—The President is
authorized to present, on behalf of the Congress, a gold
medal of appropriate design to Joseph De Laine Jr. to
posthumously honor his father, Rev. Joseph Anthony De
Laine, in recognition of Reverend De Laine’s contributions
to the Nation.
(b) DESIGN AND STRIKING.—For the purpose of the
presentation referred to in subsection (a), the Secretary
of the Treasury (hereafter in this Act referred to as the
‘‘Secretary’’) shall strike a gold medal with suitable em-
blems, devices, and inscriptions, to be determined by the
Secretary.
SEC. 4. DUPLICATE MEDALS.
Under such regulations as the Secretary may pre-
scribe, the Secretary may strike and sell duplicates in
bronze of the gold medal struck under section 3 at a price
sufficient to cover the costs of the bronze medals (includ-
ing labor, materials, dies, use of machinery, and overhead
expenses) and the costs of the gold medal.
SEC. 5. NATIONAL MEDALS.
The medals struck under this Act are national medals
for purposes of chapter 51 of title 31, United States Code.
SEC. 6. FUNDING AND PROCEEDS OF SALE.
(a) AUTHORIZATION.—There is authorized to be
charged against the United States Mint Public Enterprise
Fund an amount not to exceed $30,000 to pay for the
cost of the medals authorized by this Act.
(b) PROCEEDS OF SALE.—Amounts received from the
sale of duplicate bronze medals under section 4 shall be
deposited in the United States Mint Public Enterprise
Fund.
Æ