Dale Bumpers: “Let me say this to the distinguished Senator from Washington, whose friendship I treasure. First of all, he has worked…”

“Let me say this to the distinguished Senator from Washington, whose friendship I treasure. First of all, he has worked tirelessly to craft this bill, and there have been many conflicting forces pulling him in one direction or another. I know it has not been easy. He has always been very accommodating to me and I want to thank him profusely for that. More importantly, I want to tell him I was moved a moment ago by the very nice things he said about the role I played in the integration of my little school in Charleston, AR, at that time, with a population of 1,200. It was the very first school in the Old Confederacy to integrate after the Supreme Court decision in Brown versus Board of Education. He very generously put a $50,000 appropriation in here to do a feasibility study about establishing a national historic site in that community to commemorate this historic event. I express my deep and profound gratitude to him for that. He also agreed to include $150,000 for a similar designation for Central High School, which was the scene of one of the most, if not the most, dangerous situations in the United States since the Civil War.”