William Edwards: “I rise in opposition to the McCollum substitute. It very largely is ineffective in that it just repeats current law. Mr.…”

“I rise in opposition to the McCollum substitute. It very largely is ineffective in that it just repeats current law. Mr. Chairman, perhaps I am a lucky one in this Chamber, I and the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Pickle], and the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Rostenkowski], and a few others, because we were here in 1964 when this body in an overwhelming vote effectively eliminated apartheid from this country, apartheid that had ruined our lives and our reputation throughout the world. I might add that in that vote and in the vote the following year that finally enfranchised African-Americans in this country, the Republicans voted 82 percent for this massive revolutionary civil rights bill that made the United States the icon of the world. We are not known throughout the world with goodwill because of our atom bombs, our airplanes, our radio or TV sets. We are known throughout the world because effectively we have tried, through law and through good will, to have a country where all colors are welcome, all religious are treated fairly, and we are colorblind. Mr. Chairman, we have a chance today to finish a vestige, some remains, of this apartheid. We ought to be ashamed of the situation in this country, where in certain areas black Americans and Hispanic Americans are disproportionately executed for the same kind of crime, the same circumstances, that a white person would not be executed.”