The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“ON HATE CRIMES” mentioning the U.S. Dept. of Justice was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H5824-H5825 on July 19, 1999.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
ON HATE CRIMES
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Davis) is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, this year the celebration of our Nation's birthday, July the 4th, was shattered by a string of hate crime attacks in the Chicago area, apparently the attacks of Benjamin-
Smith who had links to the World Church of the Creator.
The targets of his attacks included African Americans, Asian Americans and Orthodox Jews. Northwestern University basketball coach Ricky Byrdsong, and Indiana University student Won-Joon Yoon died as a result of these attacks.
Followers of the church have been linked by police and civil rights groups to numerous other incidents, including the 1991 murder of an African American sailor in Neptune Beach, Florida; the 1993 fire bombing of the NAACP office in Tacoma, Washington; the 1997 beating of a black man and his son in Sunrise, Florida; and the 1998 beating and robbery of a Jewish businessman in Hollywood, Florida.
Two brothers held on stolen property charges related to the slaying of a gay couple are being investigated in arson attacks at three synagogues. The brothers' relationship to the World Church is being investigated. But hate crimes are not new or uncommon in the Chicago region. Looking over newspaper headlines, we find that in May, a mosque in DuPage County was desecrated, only the latest in a string of such desecrations.
A group of white teenagers attacked a black police officer near the Dan Ryan Woods.
A Gurnee man convicted and awaiting sentence for a hate crime against a biracial couple was arrested and charged with illegal possession of several weapons.
A 27-year-old was charged with a hate crime for intentionally running down two African American teenagers as they rode their bikes along a Kenosha sidewalk.
A Crystal Lake man was charged with shooting and killing a Japanese store owner just because of his ethnicity.
A Federal jury convicted a Blue Island man of cross burnings before the home of black neighbors in an effort to drive them from the neighborhood.
A Pakistani gas station attendant was attacked by a customer because of his ethnicity.
A retired Chicago firefighter settled a racial harassment suit, admitting his guilt of hate crimes against his Hispanic neighbors and apologizing for his acts.
Pizza Hut in Godfrey, Illinois settled a suit brought by an African American family which they refused to serve and threatened in the parking lot after they left the restaurant.
An Hispanic couple was subjected to repeated incidents of racial hate crimes, including the painting of their homes and garages with racist graffiti.
Three men who beat 13-year-old Lenard Clark into a coma because they did not like African Americans cycling through their neighborhood were convicted.
A Chicago Heights man was convicted of attacking a biracial couple in Chicago's Lakeview neighborhood.
Four teenagers, professed skinheads, were arrested for spray-painting anti-Semitic slogans on roads, signs and overpasses.
An African American man in Mokena was the victim of repeated hate crimes after receiving newspaper clippings covered with racial slurs.
A Waukegan man was convicted of kicking a Mexican-American teenager who lay dying in the street after a traffic accident.
Three white teenagers in Belleville admitted to dragging a black teen beside their sport utility vehicle.
A Rolling Meadows man was convicted of hate crimes after shouting racial slurs and attacking an African American in a bowling alley.
The list is much longer. Though the Justice Department is required to publish a report of hate crimes, police agencies are not required to report crimes to the Department of Justice. Hundreds of agencies do not report hate crimes. Many individuals are afraid to report hate crimes.
In Illinois, 114 departments reported one or more hate crimes totaling 333 for 1996. The remaining 787 agencies reported no hate crimes. It is obvious that hate crimes are running rampant throughout not only Illinois but throughout our country. They cannot, should not and must not be tolerated.
I urge America to come into the 21st century as one Nation with enough room for everybody to live.
Hate crimes are an attack on individuals or groups of individuals. But they are also an attack on our communities and our nation. The strength of our nation flows directly from the powerful notion that democracy and equality form the inseparable, interlinked foundation for our economic, social and cultural progress.
Our democracy succeeds because the notions of democracy and equality and the constant struggle to expand and deepen democracy and equality have grown and spread and taken root in the psyche of our people.
The struggle for equality for African Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans and women have not been easy or painless. These struggles are far from complete.
I believe the historical record is clear: every American has benefitted, our Nation has been enriched, by breaking down the barriers which prevent some Americans from fully participating in, contributing to and benefitting from all that America has to share.
Hate crimes, and those who perpetrate such crimes, crimes which target victims based on race, religion, gender or sexual orientation, tear at the heart of America, at the ideal that people all over the world look to for inspiration. Hate crimes are twice as likely to cause injury and four times as likely to result in hospitalization as assaults in general.
Our Nation fought a bloody civil war to determine whether a nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men (and women) are created equal can long endure. The resounding answer to that question, written in the blood of so many Americans, was nothing less than a second American Revolution.
It is no accident that our Department of Justice was born in 1871 following the Civil War as a response to the wave of hate crime terror instituted by the Ku Klux Klan. And, within the space of a few years the DOJ brought more than 500 prosecutions under the Enforcement Acts which broke the back of the Klan. It is unfortunate that the second and third incarnations of the Klan were not met with similarly forceful responses.
We need additional legislation on the Federal level to reinforce and upgrade the tools, both criminal and civil which give law enforcement the ability to prevent and punish hate crimes. Now is the time for state and local government to review their hate crime laws and upgrade the training of law enforcement officials to respond to hate crimes.
Most important, we must rally every American, every man, woman and child to join in defending our democracy. The best defense against hate crime is mass revulsion and rejection of racism, sexism and homophobia.
To paraphrase the remarks of Frederick Douglass, of July 4, 1852 condemning slavery and racism:
* * * It is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind and the earthquake. The feeling of the nation which is insensitive to such crimes must be quickened; the conscience of the nation which tolerates such crimes must be roused; the propriety of the nation which ignores such crimes must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation which tolerates such crimes must be exposed; and these crimes against God and community, men and women must be proclaimed and denounced and fought against with every fiber of our national will.
Hate crimes must not be tolerated at any level in our society.
____________________
