Date: 2011-10-06
Speaker: JACKSON LEE (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: Texas

Thank you so very much. Congresswoman SEWELL. for allowing us to come to the floor of the House and be joyful even though someone has passed. I thank my previous speakers. JOHN LEWIS. we salute you always for continuing to be our chronicler. our voice. our steady. if you will. encyclopedia of today. yesterday and tomorrow. what we should be aiming toward as a Nation and as a people but also what we came through. And to stand next to this picture. thank you for allowing me to stand next to such a symbolic statement about who I would like to call Reverend Dr. Fred L. Shuttlesworth. Can I just stand here and say that I knew him? And as well can I say that I had the privilege of following way behind JOHN LEWISs footsteps. Congresswoman SEWELL. in working in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference at the time that Reverend Dr. Ralph David Abernathy was alive. that Hosea Williams was alive. that James Orange was alive. and certainly Fred Shuttlesworth was still on the battlefield in places around the Nation. So I want to say to his children and his wife and all of his great legacy in Alabama that he has given birth to much. This picture depicts a monumental statement. both of his status as an American and a patriot. both of what he created. Whether it was a young Senator to be President. President Barack Obama. pushing this icons wheelchair as we commemorated the legacy of JOHN LEWIS. and that is the crossing of the Edmund Pettus Bridge. the time when those who spoke loudly on behalf of those who could not speak were brutalized and beaten to unconsciousness simply for the right to vote. Fred Shuttlesworth was known as a man that did not run away from danger. Fred Shuttlesworth joined Dr. Ralph David Abernathy and Martin Luther King and himself in pushing. shoving and pushing the movement in Alabama and around the Nation. At his side as a young man. a President who served this country for 8 years. a Southerner. William Jefferson Clinton. who acknowledges that part of his great legacy or great opportunity was not only the meeting of President John F. Kennedy. but during his lifetime or his Presidency to correct many of the ills that occurred to African Americans and people of the slave history in this Nation. from the establishment of the African American Museum. to the honoring of so many. such as the Tuskegee Airmen. in terms of generating that as he spoke. to the honoring of civil rights leaders. to the bestowing of recognition on Rosa Parks. There are so many things that this President. President Clinton. attempted to do because he got to know and he could understand the walk and the talk of Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth. I am grateful that we have the first African American woman Congressperson from Alabama. and I know that she told you of her familys legacy but also of the salt of the Earth that they are. Alabamans who knew of Reverend Fred L. Shuttlesworths work. What I am most moved by is the fact that he acknowledges that his beginnings were on a farm. that he was raised by his stepfather and his mother. He came first to be a truck driver. and then got the word that he should go to a school. to the Cedar Grove Academya local Bible collegeand begin the seeding of understanding in the Scriptures of much of what we who happen to be Christian believe inbut it can be found in so many faiths. from Judaism. to Islam. to Buddhism. and to many other faithsthis whole charitable role that you must take: that it is better to give to others than it is to give to yourself. Even though Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth was a feisty man. he would tell it to you. Dont get fooled by a wheelchair. He was a feisty man. He didnt take much to being offended. As JOHN LEWIS has taught us over the years. as weve traveled back to commemorate Bloody Sunday and how entrenched the movement was of nonviolence. Fred Shuttlesworth was willing to. in essence. concede his feistiness to be part of the movement he established first. the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights. and of course then to overcome its declaring of being unconstitutional and moving on to other creative ways to create and continue the movement. What I like most since JOHN LEWIS told us of the Freedom Ridesand that is an emotional experience. an emotional set of words to listen to because of the loss of life that attended to those college students and the others who got on buses from Ohio to Illinois. New Yorkplaces far from the South. They got on because they were driven by the rightness of the morality of those who were standing for the empowerment of those who had been brutalized. They came from far and wide. I dont know how one could stand by and watch buses be burned to a crisp or could watch those innocent Americansyoung and with a great deal of hopecome to the Deep South and be bloodied and be attacked and spit upon. I note that tragic moment when they were brutalized so badly as they came into the area of Reverend Shuttlesworth. They were brutalized as a result of a famous name. though a name of great damageSheriff Bull Connorwith water cannons and the violence that he evidenced that woke up America. These brutalized Freedom Riders were. I guess. temporarily taken. JOHN. to a hospital where Reverend Shuttlesworth was concerned about their safety. He didnt concern himself about his safety. but was concerned about theirs. So with a few deaconsand for those of you who understand our church structure. deacons are close to the pastor. They are as men who go with him through fire. storm. rain. and devastation. They went with him to carry these broken bodies out of the hospital. fearful for their lives. He took them to his church where. as many knew in the South. was not a place that was immune to violence. as was evidenced by the Birmingham bombing of a church that killed four little girls in a Sunday school class. But Reverend Shuttlesworth was not fearing his life. He wanted to make sure that those who had come to help them and us could be safe and would not be bombarded in the hospital and be threatened or in fear of their lives. Reverend Shuttlesworth. I want to thank you for allowing me to know you. I want to thank you for staying alive to be able to see the election of the first African American President of the United States. I am grateful that you stayed alive to see America at her best when. in 2008. she came together and unshackled the devastation of race. the ugliness of race. and began to accept that strength and rightness of anyone who desired to be President. Reverend Shuttlesworth. as you lay in rest. let me again thank you for giving us courage. for being a friend to JOHN LEWIS. a friend to Martin and to Ralph David Abernathy and to James Orange and to many of the Freedom Riders and song singers that I get to see when I go for that commemoration. What I would say in closure. Dr. Shuttlesworth. is that you wanted us to be engaged in fighting for people who could not speak for themselves. I would imagine that you would want us to pass and vote for the American Jobs Act. I imagine that you would not be accusatory as to why people are unemployed and are not rich. I imagine you would be sympathetic to the people in the streets today. now Thursday. October 6. 2011. and I imagine you would say. Keep on keeping on. I imagine you would say. Have no fear. because our great friend Dr. Martin Luther King told us of a mountaintop. and he said the pathway to the Promised Land would not be easy. He said in his dying days. or in the last hours toward the end of his life. that he had seen the Promised Land. You still lived at that time. and he told us that he might not get there but that he knew that. as a people. as this Nation. we would get to the Promised Land someday. Reverend Dr. Shuttlesworth. you have gone on. and we recognize that our people are hurting. and that theyre in the streets and that theyre all colors and backgrounds and religions in all areas of this country. You realize that we are lucky enough to have Congresswoman SEWELL and JOHN LEWIS out of Alabama. and now Atlanta. You recognize that you pass your mantle on. but you are hoping that we are not giving up and that we will always stay steadfast and that well fight for those who cannot speak and are yet unborn. For you. Reverend Shuttlesworth. I will be courageous enough to take whatever comes. whatever comes lifes way. whatever threatens my life. for it is important to note that there is something greater than life. and it is to make sure that people have an opportunity. I hope someday well have the ability to bring this Nation together again and not be wallowing in the divisiveness of Tea Parties and "No" parties and people who dont recognize what America is all about. Reverend Shuttlesworth. you saw only what was right and what was just. I bless you. and will say to you that you are a warrior that has fought a good fight. Thank you for that fight. May you rest in peace. To your family. God bless you. and God bless this warrior. and God bless the United States of America.