Political Quotes

“I, too, rise to comment on the life and legacy of our former colleague Lucien E. Blackwell, who served as a Congressman for the Second District, and prior to that served for two decades as a member of the city council of Philadelphia, where he served as a chairman of the finance committee and moved through the council all of the critical and major pieces of legislation that impacted the growth and development of the city of Philadelphia as we know it today. And even before that service, he served as an elected official in the State legislature in Pennsylvania. I remember almost three decades now ago when he led an effort with the late State representative David P. Richardson of Pennsylvania to clean up the conditions at our youth detention facility headquartered in our side of the State of the Youth Study Center on the parkway. He fought in the city council and passed the first major minority set-aside legislation once he found out that African American and women-owned businesses were getting less than 2 percent of the city procurement business, and created a program that opened a door for disadvantaged businesses to have an opportunity at the procurement in Philadelphia. As my colleague, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Brady), has indicated, he started his public career, however, as a labor leader where he leveled the Longshoreman's Union in Philadelphia. And immediately prior to that he served our Nation in the Korean War conflict.”