Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the life and work of Mrs. Sallie Baldwin Howard, a great North Carolinian, a nationally recognized academic, and a dear family friend. At 102 years old, Mrs. Howard transitioned to her heavenly home on Tuesday, September 25, 2018. Our community in Wilson, North Carolina, has lost a giant and a friend. Mr. Speaker, Mrs. Sallie Baldwin Howard was born on March 23, 1916, right in the midst of World War I, in Wilson, North Carolina, to Narcissus and Marcellus Sims. Even though I did not know Mr. Sims, I certainly knew Ms. Narcissus Sims Townsend, who lived directly across the street from me as a child. Though she was raised in the Jim Crow South as the daughter of sharecroppers, Mrs. Howard graduated as valedictorian from Wilson Colored High School, later renamed Charles H. Darden High School, in 1938, the same school that I graduated from in 1965. She attended Kittrell Junior College in Kittrell, North Carolina, before earning both a bachelor's and a master's degree in education from Hunter College in New York City. She also did extensive study at the New School of Social Research, as well as Columbia University. Mr. Speaker, Mrs. Howard taught for nearly 30 years as a first-grade teacher in New York City. While there, she worked in the New York City American Negro Theater, which helped launch the careers of the likes of Sidney Poitier, Harry Belafonte, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, and Esther Rolle.…”