Heidi Alexander: “for the convenience of the Senator from Pennsylvania, I am going to offer my unanimous consent agreement at the…”

“for the convenience of the Senator from Pennsylvania, I am going to offer my unanimous consent agreement at the beginning of my remarks, and then if he wishes to stay, he can, but if he has another place to go in his schedule, he may do that. Let me just say that the provision I am going to--let me preface it in this way. I know very well the value of historically Black colleges. One of my favorite stories is the story that the late author, Alex Haley, the author of ``Roots'' and ``The Autobiography of Malcolm X''-- I suppose the two best selling books ever on the history of the African American--used to tell about his father, Simon P. Haley, who was wasted as a child. That was the word they used. He was allowed to go to college, and he went to North Carolina A&T where he was ready to drop out. He came back, got a summer job on a Pullman train to Chicago, and a man talked to him at night asking him for a glass of warm milk. He got the glass of warm milk and thought nothing more about it. He went back to North Carolina A&T, a historically Black college. The principal called him in. He thought he was in real trouble, as the president of the college called him in. Simon P. Haley thought he was in real trouble. The President of the college said that the man on the train had sent enough money for Simon P. Haley to graduate--to pay his tuition to graduate from college.…”