Eleanor Holmes Norton: “I thank my good friend, the gentleman from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, who is so honorably following the great example…”

“I thank my good friend, the gentleman from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, who is so honorably following the great example of his predecessor Bill Gray in leading us today in the House and for all of the work that he has done in the House. I want to thank the Congressional Black Caucus and particularly our chairman, Marcia Fudge, who led us on an exhausting but exhilarating trip to South Africa just this week. I want to thank the CBC--before I ever thought about coming to Congress--for their decades of work which was instrumental in release and the work of Nelson Mandela. I went to South Africa earlier this week to share with South Africans their farewell to the father of their country, Madiba, the man who meant so much to millions of us, for his leadership throughout the world. And I went because, for me, he was a freedom-defining leader. I knew Nelson Mandela before I met him. I was a member of the Free South Africa Movement that was particularly active here in the District of Columbia, the movement led by TransAfrica which became synonymous with Free Mandela. Mr. Speaker, it was almost 30 years ago that four of us went into the South African Embassy--Randall Robinson; the head of TransAfrica, Dr. Mary Berry; my own predecessor, former Congressman Walter Fauntroy and I--who secured an appointment with the ambassador of South Africa, I must say, under false pretenses because we didn't intend to come out.…”