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.
“RECOGNIZING A CHALLENGE TO OUR YOUNG LEADERS” mentioning the U.S. Dept. of Commerce was published in the Extensions of Remarks section on pages E1366-E1367 on July 24, 1996.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
RECOGNIZING A CHALLENGE TO OUR YOUNG LEADERS
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HON. LOUIS STOKES
of ohio
in the house of representatives
Wednesday, July 24, 1996
Mr. STOKES. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to share with my colleagues a special message. Mr. Harold B. Williams, the former secretary of the Cleveland branch NAACP and a retired U.S. Department of Transportation official, recently addressed the Tabernacle A.M.E. Church in Idlewild, MI. This speech, which was delivered for the celebration of Black History Month, allowed him to send a message to our bright, young leaders of tomorrow. Mr. Williams reminded the audience that no one can reach the stars alone. He also challenged our youth to blaze their own trails and follow their own paths.
Mr. Williams also reminds us that we are here by the grace of our forefathers. He did a fine job of illuminating this point in his motivating address. Mr. Speaker, I particularly liked Harold Williams' speech because it reminds all young people that it will eventually be their responsibility to nurture, teach, and guide their successors, as well as their colleagues, toward goals which strengthen us as a Nation and a people. It is my hope that my colleagues will read this outstanding speech by Harold Williams and share its invaluable message. I ask that the following address be entered into the Congressional Record.
A Letter to Young African Americans Presented in Observance of Black
History Month, February 1996
(By Harold B. Williams)
Go! Go! Young Achievers--Excel to Olympian Heights. Bravo, African Americans of 1996. You are our pride. Come back and take someone with you!
Remember, no person makes it on their own! He or she walks in the footprints of the past. The antecedent of today's progress is found in the powerful energy unleashed generations ago to create today's chemistry for new opportunities.
Remember, young physicians and scientists, Daniel Hale Williams, pioneer in open heart surgery; Charles Drew, blood plasma research; Ben Carson, neurosurgeon, separator of Siamese twins; Louis Sullivan, Secretary of Health and Human Services, President of Morehouse College of Medicine; Jocelyn Elders, Surgeon General; Lonnie R. Bristow, President of American Medical Association, and others.
Go! Go! Young people of science. We are proud of you. Choose a cause for African Americans and humanity--health care for the poor, nutrition for children, hypertension, cancer or aids. You can do it. We are counting on you. Come back and take someone with you!
Young attorneys, at the bar of justice you jet from an orbit set by Charles Houston, NAACP counsel, Dean of Howard University Law School; Thurgood Marshall, NAACP counsel, U.S. Supreme Court Justice; William Coleman, U.S. Secretary of Transportation, corporate lawyer, Chairman of NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund; Patricia R. Harris, U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Affairs, ambassador and corporate lawyer; Johnny Cochran, trial lawyer for defense, and many more.
Go! Go! Young barristers, you successful legal specialist. Welcome to the prestigious law firms of ``Able, Best, Class, and Dollar,'' Reach for a new orbit, guardians of our civil rights. We are proud of you. Bravo! Come back and take someone with you.
Twentieth Century African Americans, captains of business--from door to door salesmen to auto dealerships to international food chains--how impressive! Remember Madam C.J. Walker, entrepreneur of hair products and hair care; John Johnson, publisher of Ebony and Jet Magazines; Robert Maynard, Editor/Publisher, Oakland Tribune, a major U.S. daily newspaper; Reginald Lewis of Beatrice Foods, first African American C.E.O. of a billion dollar corporation; Andrew Brimmer, economist and a former governor of the Federal Reserve Board; Jessie Hill, Chairman, Atlanta Life Insurance Company; and the new breed of diversified investors/proprietors: J. Bruce Llewellyn, Philadelphia Coca-Cola Bottling Company, chairman ABC T.V., Buffalo N.Y.; Percy Sutton, chairman, Inner City Broadcasting N.Y., past President, Borough of Manhattan; Bill Cosby, Oprah Winfrey, Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, and others.
Go! Go! Young Tycoons! There is always room at the top for
``BUPPIES,'' Wall Streeters and super achievers. Go alumni from the University of Entrepreneurial Self Help. We are very, very proud of you! Hats off to you alphabets--Ph.D's, CPA's, JD's, MBA's, etc. Bravo! You are proud of yourselves--You should be. Where would you be without your smarts? But what would you be without the past to use your smarts? Go! Create opportunity, goodwill and Come back and take someone with you!
African American artists--Our first frontier of interracial progress, we are proud and happy with your accomplishments. You are our hope for the future. Remember Marian Anderson, Metropolitan opera diva and concert artist; Scott Joplin, composer; Josephine Baker, international singer and entertainer; Paul Robeson, concert artist and actor; W.C. Handy, composer of ``St. Louis Blues''; Lena Horne, actress and singer, Katherine Dunham, dance and choreographer; Sidney Poitier, actor; Spike Lee, producer; Quincy Jones, musician, composer, arranger; James Earl Jones, actor; Barry Gordy, founder and chairman of Motown Records; Whitney Houston, singer; Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee, husband and wife actor and actress and producers. Remember the Great Duke Ellington! And many, many others who left the stage door open and the lights on.
Go! Go! Young artists (no stereotypes!) Win your Pulitzers for writing and your Image, Emmy and Oscar awards for drama, comedy, classical music, Broadway song and dance. Bravo! Young electronic media performers, writers, sculptors, painters and poets. Leave the stage door open and the lights on--Come back and take someone with you!
African American statesmen and other persona are gifted and respected individuals upon our horizons--from Privates to Admirals and Generals--from Annapolis, West Point and Tuskegee--from the battlefield of Bunkerhill and ships at Pearl Harbor, African American patriotism and bravery is legendary.
Listen closely young African Americans to this roll call: Colonel Charles Young; Brigadier General B.O. Davis, Sr.; Lieutenant General B.O. Davis, Jr.; Four Star General Daniel
``Chappie'' James; Admiral Samuel Gravely, U.S. Navy; Colin Powell, Four Star General, Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff and proposed President candidate.
Go!Go! Young soldiers and sailors. Earn your stripes, bars, eagles and stars. Reach for the top brass. You can do it!
African American statesmen and international achievers of rare distinction are our authentic heroes. Remember Ralph J. Bunch, Deputy Secretary General of the United Nations, Awardee of the Nobel Peace Prize; Donald McHenry, Ambassador to the United Nations; Andrew J. Young, Ambassador to the United Nations; Ruth Simmons, President of Smith College; Dorothy Height, President of the National Council of Negro Women; Ronald McNair, physicist, astronaut, perished in space exploration; Mae Jemison, M.D., first Afro-American in space exploration; Alex Haley, author of Roots; Ron Brown, Chairman, Democratic National Committee, Secretary, U.S. Department of Commerce; Marion Wright Edelman, President of the Children's Defense Fund; Joe Louis, Muhammed Ali, boxers; Benjamin Mays, theologian, President of Morehouse College; Samuel Proctor, President, Virginia Union University, theologian, Boston and Duke University Divinity Schools; Franklin Thomas, President, Ford Foundation; Toni Morrison, novelist and awardee of the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Go!Go! You super high chargers! There is no limit on what you can accomplish. There are new words to conquer. Always questions in search of answers. Give it your very best! Come back and take someone with you!
The African American political legacy, a chronicle of Elan Vital, fifty years of precedent setters, who have progressed from ward leaders to mayors, to State Houses, to the U.S. Congress. They are the unmatchables of their time. Remember Adam Clayton Powell, Congressman from Harlem; Eddie Brooke, U.S. Senator from Massachusetts; Shirley Chisolm, Congresswoman from Brooklyn; Carl B. Stokes, Mayor of Cleveland, Ambassador; Louis Stokes, Congressman from Cleveland and Chairman of U.S. House Assassination Committee; Barbara Jordan, attorney, Congresswoman from Houston, Texas and professor of government; Carol Mosely-Braun, U.S. Senator from Illinois; Tom Bradley, 20-year Mayor of Los Angeles; Willie Brown, Speaker, State Assembly of California and Mayor of San Francisco; William Gray, III, Congressman from Philadelphia and Chairman, U.S. House Budget Committee, President, United Negro College Fund; Douglas Wilder, Governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia, Kewesi Mfume, Congressman from Baltimore, Chairman of Congressional Black Caucus, President of the NAACP, and many illustrious others.
Young African American politicians, you have an amazing legacy. Big Boots? `Yes, try them on--in success. One size fits all; no problem. You can do it! New political gerrymandered district lines, Plessy/Ferguson mentality, Christian ``Wrong'' Coalition and Affirmative Action reversals are mandates to go and scale the mountains of hypocrisy. Climb! Progress is like a pyramid--each block at the base makes possible many more on the way up. Hang in thre, intrepid ones! Climb down and take someone back with you!
African American Revolutionaries for cange are keepers of the Covenant of Freedom, torch lighters and standard bearers for the fearless marching feet of souls in the army of Justice. The rolls are too numerous to call, but their record is enshrined in memory--ink and blood. Forget them not!
Remember Richard Allen, founder of the AME Church; Nat Turner, insurrectionist; Harriet Tubman, Engineer underground Railroad; Frederick Douglas, abolitionist writer and orator, Daniel Payne, Founder of Wilberforce University, first African American institution of higher education, Bishop, AME Church W.E.B. Dubois, founder NAACP, expatriate; Reverdy C. Ranson, Niagara Movement, leader hiring of first Black policeman in New York City, Bishop AME Church; Mary M. Bethune, educator, founder, Bethune Cookman College; Marcus Garvey, self help and back to Africa movement; A. Phillip Randolph, founder of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, father of Black protest marches on Washington and Chair of NAACP National Labor and Industry Committee; Roy Wilkins, Executive Secretary of NAACP; Joseph Gomez, pastor, lecturer, philosopher, bishop, AME Church; Jackie Robinson, barrier breaker, major league baseball, do-chairman, NAACP life membership committee; Rosa Parks, member, AME Church, NAACP youth council adviser and mother of the civil rights movement; Robert Williams, President, Union County, North Carolina NAACP, founder and president of People's Association for Human Rights; Jesse Jackson, founder of PUSH, Presidential candidate; Myrlie Evers-Williams, chairperson, NAACP; Harry Moore, slain NAACP official in Florida; Edgar Evers, slain NAACP Field Secretary in Mississippi; Malcolm X, slain Muslim leader; Martin Luther King, Jr., slain leader of the civil rights movement, Preident of SCLC, awardee of the Nobel Peace Prize and many, many more.
Go! Go! You, young African Americans--Excel! Lead on, you new keepers of the Covenant. Be fearless, honest to your African American heritage--speak up for justice, protect the weak, banish poverty of the spirit, pursue protest with diligence and strengthen your religious faith. You can do it! Go, super charger achievers! We are counting on you! Come back and take someone with you!
Young African Americans--The past is an encyclopedia of redeemable legacies, not just a record of subjugation, but a call to fulfill an ancient pledge given to each generation to make its payment to justice and destiny.
Keep the faith, young African Americans! Charge onward and upward and take someone with you.
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