On the recordOctober 28, 2019
Let me first thank the gentlewoman from Detroit for her leadership on this issue tonight. We felt it was only fitting that she lead us in this Special Order hour for Mr. Conyers. I rise to honor the former Congressman, John James Conyers, after his passing on October 27, 2019. I would like to start by offering my thoughts and prayers to his wife, Monica, and his sons, John and Carl, during this time of loss. Mr. Conyers spent 53 years as a Congressman from Michigan, mostly from districts in and around the Detroit area. Mr. Conyers was the third longest-serving Congressman and the longest-serving African American Congressman in United States history. He helped found the Congressional Black Caucus with some of our Nation's most prominent civil rights leaders and colleagues such as Shirley Chisholm and William Lacy Clay, Sr., the father of my esteemed colleague, William Lacy Clay, Jr., from Missouri's First District. During his life he had several accomplishments in and out of Congress. He joined voter registration drives in Selma, Alabama, in 1963, a year before the landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act even became law. As a Congressman, he led the drive to help make Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday a national holiday and succeeded through perseverance and continued efforts to make that happen despite insurmountable odds. He helped calm revolters in his district during Detroit's racial strife of 1967.…
