House Concurrent Resolution 12

A CONCURRENT RESOLUTION FORMALLY REQUESTING THE JOINT COMMITTEE ON THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS TO APPROVE THE REPLACEMENT OF THE STATUES OF JAMES ZACHARIAH GEORGE AND JEFFERSON DAVIS THAT ARE DISPLAYED IN STATUARY HALL IN THE UNITED STATES CAPITOL WITH A STATUE OF BOTH CIVIL RIGHTS ICON, FANNIE LOU HAMER, AND SENATOR HIRAM RHODES REVELS, THE FIRST AFRICAN AMERICAN TO SERVE AS A UNITED STATES SENATOR.

WHEREAS, the National Statuary Hall Collection in the United States Capitol is comprised of 100 statues contributed by each of the 50 states to honor persons notable in each state's history; and

WHEREAS, thirty-five statues are now displayed in the National Statuary Hall, while others have been placed in other parts of the Capitol, including the Crypt, the Hall of Columns and the Capitol Visitor Center; and

WHEREAS, Mississippi has representational statues of Jefferson Davis and James Zachariah George displayed, which were crafted by Augustus Lukeman and dedicated in 1931; and

WHEREAS, Jefferson Davis, who authored Rise and Fall of the Confederate States, served in the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate, was President of the Confederate States, and eventually made his home at Beauvoir, near Biloxi, Mississippi; and

WHEREAS, James Zachariah George was a Confederate colonel who served on the Mississippi Supreme Court, represented Mississippi in the United States Senate, helped frame the future Sherman Anti-Trust Act, served as a member of the Mississippi Constitutional Convention of 1890, and successfully defended the constitution before the Senate and the Supreme Court; and

WHEREAS, both men are important figures who reflect similar times, but do not necessarily reflect the unified spirit encompassing the Mississippi of today, as it is Mississippi's sentimental desire to respect and celebrate the past while honoring its evolution from past icons to present icons; and

WHEREAS, on October 6, 1917, the world was blessed with the birth of an American voting rights advocate, civil rights leader and generous philanthropist, Fannie Lou Hamer, and now, the State of Mississippi, as well as the United States of America still revel in the progress and promise that she bestowed upon her fellow Mississippians and fellow Americans; and

WHEREAS, born in Montgomery County, Mississippi, the youngest of twenty children born to Ella and James Lee Townsend, Mrs. Hamer and her family moved to Sunflower County, Mississippi, to work as sharecroppers on the plantation of W.D. Marlow, where she began picking cotton at the age of six; and

WHEREAS, Mrs. Hamer attended school in a one-room schoolhouse on the plantation from 1924 until 1930, but when the importance of her ability to pick 200 to 300 pounds of cotton daily outweighed the importance of her education, she was forced to drop out and toil in the fields all day, fortunately though, not before she had learned how to read and write; and

WHEREAS, her ability to read and write earned her the title of time and record keeper for the plantation in 1944, and in 1945, she married Mr. Perry "Pap" Hamer, and the two of them worked together on the plantation for the next seventeen years, until Mrs. Hamer was fired for registering to vote; and

WHEREAS, beginning her trailblazing journey to help achieve equality for African Americans at the polling place in the 1950s, Mrs. Hamer attended several annual civil rights conferences in Mound Bayou, Mississippi, where she became inspired from civil rights activists such as Mahalia Jackson, Thurgood Marshall and Representative Charles Diggs of Michigan; and

WHEREAS, in 1961, Mrs. Hamer truly realized the importance of her pleas for equality and change in the South and across the nation when she entered an operating room to have a tumor removed, but left without a tumor or any reproductive organs, as the white doctor from Mississippi had given her a hysterectomy without her consent as part of the state's plan to reduce the number of poor African Americans located within its borders, a practice common in the South during that time; and

WHEREAS, as a result of her "Mississippi appendectomy," the phrase she coined for her egregiously uninformed and nonconsensual sterilization, Mr. and Mrs. Hamer were never able to have children of their own, but unwilling to let racism prohibit them from being parents, they later raised and eventually adopted two girls; and

WHEREAS, on August 23, 1962, after listening to an inspiring sermon from Reverend James Bevel, an organizer for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and associate of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who encouraged African Americans to register to vote despite the hardships waiting for them at the polls, Mrs. Hamer did just that, as she was the first volunteer to register to vote; and

WHEREAS, on August 31, the courageous Mrs. Hamer traveled on a bus with other recipients of Reverend Bevel's sermon to Indianola, Mississippi, to register to vote, and to help calm the nerves of her fellow passengers and help them understand that what they were doing was the right thing, she sang Christian hymns, including "Go Tell It on the Mountain" and "This Little Light of Mine"; and

WHEREAS, the day she registered to vote proved to be bittersweet for Mrs. Hamer, because after that bus ride to Indianola, she had finally registered to vote, the same right that all other Americans had, and a step towards true equality, but upon her return to Marlow's plantation, she was fired for doing the one thing she had fought so hard to do; and

WHEREAS, her lack of employment ultimately benefited the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi, as the trials, tribulations and mostly, perseverance, reached the ears of Bob Moses, the SNCC organizer, who recruited her to perform activist work all over the South, with her base location remaining in Mississippi; and

WHEREAS, during one of her travel days, Mrs. Hamer and other activists were returning to Mississippi from a literacy workshop in Charleston, South Carolina, when they were stopped and falsely arrested in Winona, Mississippi, but the ugliness did not end there as once they were in jail, her colleagues were beaten by police in the booking room, and she was taken to a cell where the police had ordered two other inmates to beat her, which they did until she nearly died; and

WHEREAS, after being falsely detained for three days, Mrs. Hamer was finally released, and her recovery from the brutal beating lasted for over a month, but despite her recurring physical and psychological problems that resulted from that horrendous incident, she bravely continued advocating in Mississippi and organizing voter registration drives, including the "Freedom Ballot Campaign" in 1963, and the "Freedom Summer" initiative in 1964; and

WHEREAS, in the summer of 1964, Mrs. Hamer helped organize the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, or "Freedom Democrats," to challenge Mississippi's all-white, anti-civil rights delegation to the Democratic National Convention, which failed to represent all Mississippians, and through her efforts, and her many, many inspirational speeches on the issue, in 1968, the Freedom Democrats were finally seated at the convention and the party adopted a clause that demanded equality of representation from their states' delegation; and

WHEREAS, in 1972, Mrs. Hamer was elected as a national party delegate, and throughout her life, she continued to work at the grassroots-level for programs such as Head Start, the Freedom Farm Cooperative in Sunflower County, Mississippi, and Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Poor People's Campaign; and

WHEREAS, a day that will forever be associated with grief and sorrow in the minds and hearts of all Americans, on March 14, 1977, at the age of 59, complications from hypertension and breast cancer ended the life of our beloved civil rights leader, Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer, but her legacy of change and progress will continue to encourage young leaders in Mississippi and around the country for generations to come; and

WHEREAS, in addition to Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer's outstanding legacy, it is also important to recognize the incredible impact of Senator Hiram Rhodes Revels, the first African American to serve in the United States Congress, and one of Mississippi's most iconic figures who stepped into history and pioneered toward equality and justice; and

WHEREAS, one hundred and fifty three years ago, on February 25, 1870, visitors in the packed United States Senate galleries burst into applause as Senator-elect Hiram Rhodes Revels, from Mississippi, entered the chamber to take his oath of office, and those present knew that they were witnessing an event of great historical significance, as he was about to become the first African American to serve in the United States Congress; and

WHEREAS, Senator Revels was born a free man in Fayetteville, North Carolina, on September 27, 1827, and was the son of a Baptist preacher, and as a youth, he took lessons at a private school run by an African-American woman, and eventually traveled north to further his education, attending seminaries in Indiana and Ohio, becoming a minister of the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church in 1845, and eventually studying theology at Knox College in Illinois; and

WHEREAS, during the turbulent decade of the 1850s, Senator Revels preached to free and enslaved men and women in various states while surreptitiously assisting fugitive slaves, and when the Civil War began in 1861, he was serving as a pastor in Baltimore, Maryland, and before long, he was forming regiments of African-American soldiers, serving as a Union army chaplain in Mississippi, and establishing schools for freed slaves in Missouri; and

WHEREAS, after the war ended, Senator Revels settled in Natchez, Mississippi, where he served as presiding elder of the AME Church, and in 1868, he was appointed as an alderman for Natchez, and in 1869, he was elected to the Mississippi Senate, as one of thirty-five African Americans elected to the Mississippi Legislature that year; and

WHEREAS, in 1870, as Mississippi sought readmission to representation in the United States Congress, and as the Republican Party firmly controlled both houses of Congress, and also dominated the southern state legislatures, that, along with the pending ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment, set the stage for the election of Congress's first African-American members; and

WHEREAS, one of the first orders of business for the new Mississippi Legislature when it convened on January 11, 1870, was to fill the vacancies in the United States Senate, which had remained empty since the 1861 withdrawal of Albert Brown and Confederate president, Jefferson Davis; and

WHEREAS, representing around one-quarter of the state legislative body, the African-American legislators insisted that one of the vacancies be filled by an African American, and since Senator Revels had impressed his colleagues with an impassioned prayer, legislators agreed that the shorter of the two terms, set to expire in March 1871, would go to him; and

WHEREAS, Mississippi gained readmission on February 23, 1870, and Senator Henry Wilson, one of the United States Senate's strongest civil rights advocates, promptly presented Senator Revels' credentials to the Senate, and three senators immediately issued a challenge, arguing that Senator Revels had not been a United States citizen for the constitutionally required nine years, citing the 1857 Dred Scott Supreme Court decision, arguing that he did not gain citizenship until at least 1866, with the passage of that year's civil rights act, and perhaps not until the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified in 1868, and by this logic, Senator Revels could only claim that he had been a United States citizen for, at most, four years; and

WHEREAS, Senator Revels and his supporters dismissed the challenge, insisting that the Fourteenth Amendment had repealed the Dred Scott decision, and they pointed out that long before 1866, Senator Revels had voted in the state of Ohio, certainly qualifying him as a citizen; and

WHEREAS, by an overwhelming margin, the United States Senate voted 48 to 8 to seat Senator Revels, and two days later, he was escorted to the well by Senator Wilson, and took the oath of office on February 25, 1870; and

WHEREAS, three weeks later, the Senate galleries were again filled to capacity, as Senator Revels rose to deliver his maiden speech, and seeing himself as a representative of African American interests throughout the nation, he spoke against an amendment to the Georgia readmission bill that could be used to prevent African Americans from holding state office; and

WHEREAS, Senator Revels made good use of his time in office, championing education for African Americans, speaking out against racial segregation, and fighting efforts to undermine the civil and political rights of African Americans, and when his brief term ended on March 3, 1871, he returned to Mississippi, where he became president of the first African-American land grant college established in the United States, Alcorn A&M College, now Alcorn State University; and

WHEREAS, in 1873, Senator Revels took a leave of absence from his position as president of Alcorn to serve as Mississippi's interim Secretary of State after the sudden death of his friend, James Lynch; and

WHEREAS, in July 1876, Senator Revels returned to his former position as president of Alcorn, and he also edited the Southwestern Christian Advocate newspaper, the official newspaper of the AME Church, and after his retirement from Alcorn in 1882, he returned to his former church in Holly Springs, Mississippi, and remained active in the religious community, teaching theology at Shaw University, now Rust College, in Holly Springs, and serving as the AME's district superintendent, and on January 16, 1901, he passed away in Aberdeen, Mississippi, while attending a religious conference; and

WHEREAS, during the Reconstruction Era, a total of seventeen African Americans served in the United States Congress, fifteen in the House of Representatives and two in the Senate, and the significance of the courageous and pioneering service of Senator Revels and other African-American congressmen of the Reconstruction Era cannot be overstated, and although the struggle to fully achieve equality would continue for years to come, their remarkable accomplishments opened doors for others to follow; and

WHEREAS, 2 USC Section 2132 allows a state to request the Joint Committee on the Library of Congress to approve the removal of a previously placed statue from the collection and the replacement of it with an equally suitable and socially inclusive display that is representative of the entirety of the state's diverse citizenry; and

WHEREAS, if the Joint Committee on the Library of Congress approves a request, the architect of the Capitol shall enter into an agreement with the state to carry out the replacement in accordance with the request and any conditions that the Joint Committee may require for its approval, and such agreement shall

provide that the new statue shall be subject to the same conditions and restrictions as applied to any statue provided by a state under 2 USC Section 2131 and the state shall pay any costs related to the replacement, including costs in connection with the design, construction, transportation and placement of the new statue, the removal and transportation of the statue being replaced and any unveiling ceremony; and

WHEREAS, several states have chosen to replace existing statues, thereby including representations of Dwight Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford, Thomas Edison and Helen Keller; and

WHEREAS, the Mississippi Legislature desires to replace the statues of James Zachariah George and Jefferson Davis with a statue of both civil rights legends, Fannie Lou Hamer, and Senator Hiram Rhodes Revels, the first African American to serve as a Senator in the United States Congress, to honor and cherish the extraordinary legacies of these patron citizens of Mississippi, and to further reflect the transformative power of Mississippi from its past to its present; and

WHEREAS, we request the Governor of the State of Mississippi to affirm the efforts of this Legislature by issuing a proclamation or statement approving the request for the replacement of the statues, and to create a commission of Mississippi artisans and artists who are authorized to solicit and collect private contributions for the creation and placement of the statues of Fannie Lou Hamer and Senator Hiram Rhodes Revels; and

WHEREAS, it is incumbent upon this Legislature to pursue the interest of its citizens by ensuring that statues representing our state wholly reflect the astounding strides made by all citizens, particularly in this instance when the state itself bears the moniker of being the "birthplace of the Civil Rights Movement," and there have been no better ambassadors of our state than the distinguished and incomparable Fannie Lou Hamer and Senator Hiram Rhodes Revels:

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE STATE OF MISSISSIPPI, THE SENATE CONCURRING THEREIN, That we do hereby submit this formal request to the Joint Committee on the Library of Congress to approve the replacement of the statues of James Zachariah George and Jefferson Davis with statues of Fannie Lou Hamer and Senator Hiram Rhodes Revels in the Statuary Hall of the United States Capitol.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, That copies of this resolution be furnished to the Joint Committee on the Library of Congress, to the members of the Mississippi Congressional delegation and to the members of the Capitol Press Corps.