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[Page S2267]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
REMEMBERING HARRIS LLEWELLYN WOFFORD, JR.
Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, today I wish to remember and pay tribute to
former Senator Harris Llewellyn Wofford, Jr. and his life of dedicated
service to our country and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
Harris lived a life of service, committed to advancing civil rights
and ending injustice. Early in his career, Harris went to India to
study nonviolence and the teachings of Gandhi. The lessons he learned
during that time would become indispensable as Harris got to know Dr.
Martin Luther King, Jr., and became involved in the civil rights
movement, helping to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1957, the first civil
rights legislation since reconstruction.
When John F. Kennedy was running for President in 1960, Harris was an
adviser on his campaign. Days before the election, Dr. King was
unjustly imprisoned, and Wofford urged Kennedy and his team to call
Coretta Scott King to comfort her and demonstrate his commitments to
civil rights. Once Kennedy was elected, Harris Wofford served as
Special Assistant to the President for Civil Rights and chairman of the
Subcabinet Group on Civil Rights. He urged the President and Attorney
General Robert F. Kennedy to pursue civil rights legislation. Wofford
would join Martin Luther King and others in the Selma to Montgomery
Civil Rights marches in 1965 in support of voting rights for African-
Americans.
While serving in the Kennedy administration, Wofford worked with R.
Sargent Shriver on the creation of the Peace Corps, eventually leaving
the White House to serve as the Peace Corps' special representative to
Africa and director of operations in Ethiopia, as well as associate
director. He would also play a role in the creation of Volunteers in
Service to America, a domestic version of the Peace Corps.
In 1991, when former Pennsylvania Senator H. John Heinz was killed in
a plane crash, my father, Governor Robert P. Casey, turned to Harris
Wofford to fill the vacancy. Harris went on to win a special election
and served until 1994 when he narrowly lost reelection. While in
office, he worked to pass the National and Community Service Act,
creating AmeriCorps, the Senior Corps and Learn and Serve America.
Harris would go on to serve as the head of AmeriCorps.
If one tried to sum up Harris Wofford's life in one word, it would be
service. He truly believed that through service every individual could
contribute to the betterment of his or her community, State, country,
and the world. Harris Wofford's friend, Martin Luther King, Jr., said
``everyone can be great, because everyone can serve.'' Today we honor
Harris Wofford's life of service which will continue to inspire
Americans to serve one another and our Nation.
____________________