January 14, 2020 - Issue: Vol. 166, No. 8 — Daily Edition116th Congress (2019 - 2020) - 2nd Session
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PAYING TRIBUTE TO RICHARD BARNETT; Congressional Record Vol. 166, No. 8
(House of Representatives - January 14, 2020)
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[Pages H234-H236] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov] PAYING TRIBUTE TO RICHARD BARNETT The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 3, 2019, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Danny K. Davis) for 30 minutes. Mr. DANNY K. DAVIS of Illinois. Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to come to the floor at this time. I come to pay tribute to a person who is not easy to describe. As a matter of fact, he has been called many things, has been many things, and will always be many things. As a matter of fact, his name is Richard Barnett. He held no title and he held no office. As a matter of fact, he never ran for public office, to my knowledge. But he probably helped more individuals get elected to judgeships in Cook County than anybody in the history of the county. As a matter of fact, he also happened to have been the manager of my first campaign for public office which was about 40 years ago. After the campaign was over, he went into the hospital. He had taken ill but would not go into the hospital until after the election was done. He finally did go after we had won, and he looked as though he only weighed about 90 pounds which means that he was just that sick, he was just that ill. But he bounced back and went back to work at his actual job which was that of a postal clerk. [[Page H235]] He went back and worked until retirement. Then he became very actively engaged in the election of Harold Washington for mayor of the city of Chicago. He took a job and worked for the city until he quit that after Harold had passed away, because he really was not looking for a job or didn't want a job. He became significantly important because we have all heard the term political machine. We don't hear it as much now as we did in the past, but political machines have been described in many different ways, sometimes good, sometimes not so good, and sometimes bad. {time} 1545 One definition that people generally accept as being fairly common is that a political machine is a political group in which an authoritative leader or small group commands the support of a core of supporters and businesses, usually campaign workers, who receive rewards for their efforts. The machine is based on the ability of the boss or group to get out the vote for their candidate on election day. The term ``political machine'' dates back to the 20th century in the United States. In the late 19th century, large cities in the United States--Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Kansas City, New York, Philadelphia, St. Louis, and others--were accused of forming, building, and making use of political machines. Chicago, being one of those, emerged as one of the big cities with a strong political machine. The machine was known to totally dominate and control all the machinery of government, especially in the immigrant and Black communities. When I came to Chicago in 1961, Chicago was seriously segregated, as it is today, and seriously politically organized, much more than it is today. These were what was called the movement years. This is the period when Dr. Martin Luther King came into Chicago. This is the period when we experienced the War on Poverty, great efforts to reduce and work on some of the issues plaguing individuals who were at the bottom of the socioeconomic scale. That was when I met Richard Barnett. He was part of a small group of activists who felt and believed that the machine could be defeated. Notables like Leon Despres, Richard Barnett, himself, and others worked in ways to try to undercut the power and influence. People were meeting a great deal in Chicago, and there were meetings all the time, almost every day. We were young activists and would almost be looking for meetings. People would talk about everything. They talked about race issues. They would talk about poverty. They would talk about the need for programs. But very seldom would they talk about electoral politics. Richard was one of the persons who would, and he kind of checked people out at the meetings. When there was a campaign going on, he might call you up. I never will forget, he called me and asked me if I would be a poll watcher. I said, what am I going to watch? Am I going to watch the polls? He said, well, that is not exactly what it means, because I really did not know. I mean, I would go to the meetings and all. He said: No, you are going to go and watch to make sure that the election is fair. And I am trying to figure out how in the world can I make sure that an election is fair by watching the poll. The next time he called, he says: Would you like to be a LEAP judge? I said: Leap judge? Does that mean I am going to jump over somebody? He laughed and said: Well, that is not quite exactly what that means either. That means ``legal elections in all precincts,'' and we are working to try to make sure that the elections are fair and that the votes are accurate. That was Richard. Richard always had a telephone book and a bunch of names, and he was most effective with that. I also say that it was him and some other folk who got me to run for the city council. I had no intention of running, but I did agree to be chairman of a committee to help find a candidate. But we couldn't find anybody; nobody would run. We broke up the committee, and I ran into the person we were going to run against. He started to do what we call sell wolf tickets. He says: You guys have been talking about what you are going to do to me, and you can't even find a candidate. I went home that evening and said to my wife: I think I am going to run for the city council. She said: Who, you? I said: Well, yeah, me. She said: You can't run for no city council. You are not even a precinct captain. And I said: Well, I didn't know you had to be one to run. At any rate, I called Richard, and Richard said: Well, if you decide you are going to run, I will help you. That is exactly what he did, and he has been helping me ever since. He has been helping me every time I run. He has been helping other people every time they run. Never to my knowledge have I known him to get 1 cent for working a campaign or working in anybody's campaign. He became sort of an icon to those of us who believe in what we called independent politics, meaning independent of bossism, independent of not being able to make up your own mind and make your own decisions. I guess when I went to his funeral on Saturday, the individuals who were there, they were just down the line, down the line. I think some of what I experienced with Richard, I am sure that you experienced some of it also. Madam Speaker, I am delighted that Mr. Rush came over to join me as we talk about this community icon from our city. I might also add that Bobby's district was the first district that an African American won after African Americans were all put out or left or didn't come back at the end of the 18th century. Madam Speaker, I yield time to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Rush), the Representative from the First District in Illinois. Mr. RUSH. Madam Speaker, I thank my good friend, the dynamic part of the dynamic duo, my brother who is known far and wide as being a voice of inspiration, a voice of reason, and a mighty voice of valor, my friend and colleague for many, many years, Congressman Danny K. Davis from the great Seventh Congressional District in the State of Illinois. I thank Congressman Davis for honoring the legacy of his friend and mine, Mr. Richard Barnett, who was a true visionary, whose outstanding efforts helped bring Chicago's local government and the State of Illinois' government closer to the people who consented to be governed, to the people who know governments are supposed to serve. Madam Speaker, Richard Barnett was a man of enormous talents, skills, and abilities. Integral to his vision, though, was a focus on enfranchising those who had been intentionally excluded from the political process by Chicago's political elite. Richard was a courageous voice for the left out, for the locked out, and for those who were forced to live on the margins of political power in the city of Chicago. I guess the clearest example of this was the critical role that Richard Barnett played in the election of Chicago's first African American mayor, Harold Washington, and the defeat of Chicago's vaunted Democratic machine. But we can't look at one election and summarize Richard's contribution by just one election. Richard Barnett's transformative role in Chicago politics would come years earlier, following the untimely assassination of my dear friend and colleague, Fred Hampton. The story goes that after then-Cook County State's Attorney Edward V. Hanrahan led the political assassination of Hampton, who was chairman of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party, Richard Barnett encouraged all African Americans, all minorities, all good people in the city of Chicago, all those who cared about civil rights, law and order, and justice in our city, to refuse to vote for Edward Hanrahan in the upcoming general election. {time} 1600 That was the election in 1972. This was in spite of the fact that Richard was a Democrat, and most of the African American community was Democrat. We vote with the Democratic machine. [[Page H236]] We refused to just be ignored and disrespected, and we defeated the Democratic machine in Chicago in the election of 1972 for Cook County State's attorney but, for the first time in the history of the city of Chicago, elected a Republican as the State's attorney of Cook County, Bernard J. Carey. The evil Edward V. Hanrahan would lose the general election, mostly because of Richard Barnett's political acumen and activism. This defeat by the Cook County Democratic machine would ignite a political awakening in Chicago that would begin with the 1983 election of Harold Washington. But it would go even beyond that and would go on to inspire African Americans all across the country to run for public office, including yours truly. Barnett's work elected strong political voices, committed political voices, dedicated, passionate political voices up and down the ballot, year in and year out. Richard Barnett helped elect scores of members of the city council, aldermen, appellate court judges, judges in the circuit court, State representatives, State senators, Members of Congress, other elected officials. I guess, personally, for me, Richard Barnett's legacy was centered around his strategic and informed advice. I mean, you would just marvel, sitting in a political education class, where Richard Barnett would take a group of--not an organization, but just well-meaning individuals from different places, some Ph.D.'s and some GEDs and no Ds, bring them into a room, spend time telling them about not only how to win an election, but why they should win an election. Barnett would tell us how to use the very tactics that precinct captains had been using for decades and use it against those same precinct captains. He would teach us how to canvass an election. The first time I ever heard anything about a canvass, it flowed from Richard Barnett's lips: how to take a poll sheet and go from house to house and building to building and floor to floor asking people would they vote for your candidate, and then summarize that by either putting a plus or a minus. If they were going to vote for your candidate, they were a plus voter; if they were going to vote against your candidate, then they were a minus voter; and if they were undecided, then you put a zero. And you just didn't stop there. The minuses, you left them alone, but the zeroes, you went back to them. Richard Barnett told us all of that every day from the announcement to the decision day in an election, and that was election day, and how you had to really be prepared for election day because, as Congressman Davis indicated, we didn't have poll watchers in the polls, passing 100 feet outside of the polls. If you didn't go and locate your plus voters and get them to the polls, then you would not win that election. So Richard Barnett taught us the strategy and the discipline of how to win an election. Barnett shaped a lot of community leaders, politicians, and activists through his example and through those political education classes. The list is prominent, exalted, endless: Congressman Danny K. Davis; yours truly, Congressman Bobby L. Rush; Congressman Chuy Garcia; former Congressman Luis Gutierrez. We all sat at Richard Barnett's knee and learned how to win elections from this eminent political strategist and teacher. Even Barnett's charisma, his character, his teaching transcended into the mindset, the strategies of the former President of the United States. Mr. DANNY K. DAVIS of Illinois. Madam Speaker, the gentleman just talked about Representative Garcia, who has just joined us and come in. I think we have got about 5 minutes left. Mr. RUSH. Certainly, Congressman Davis. I just wanted to add my voice to the Richard Barnett story that the Nation must know about. Mr. DANNY K. DAVIS of Illinois. Madam Speaker, I am pleased to yield to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Garcia). We call him ``Chuy'' in Chicago, but everybody knows him that way. Mr. GARCIA of Illinois. Madam Speaker, I am delighted to be on the floor this afternoon and to join the gentlemen in honoring the life and the memory and the legacy of Richard Barnett. Richard was a neighbor of Chicago's Lawndale community. He lived just a few blocks from my house. He worked as a U.S. Postal Service employee prior to his retirement in 1982. He was very devoted to his wife and his children and was involved in his local community--in the schools, in the parks, and in the churches--and every aspect of civic life as a good community resident. But Richard was also a mentor to me in my earliest days as a candidate for political office. From the early 1980s, when I first stepped up, I learned how to organize in communities of color so that they could become politically empowered at the local, State, and Federal level. He helped enrich my understanding of the Voting Rights Act and how the Federal law could help Chicago's Latino communities in the early 1980s elect people to Chicago's city council, to the State general assembly, to the Cook County board, and, yes, even to the Federal Government, a position that I can say I hold, in part, because of the mentorship of Richard Barnett. Richard was deeply committed to dismantling the infamously corrupt and discriminatory and exclusionary Chicago political machine with new political movements that were rooted in Chicago neighborhoods, and he wanted to usher in an era of equitable and honest government. Richard was instrumental in bringing together multiracial, multiethnic, and faith coalitions across Chicago to advance progressive public policies. He helped me in my elections to the Chicago City Council, to the Illinois Senate, to the Cook County board, and to Congress. I will be eternally grateful for all of his assistance and mentorship and friendship over nearly a period of four decades in the city of Chicago. Richard was a true son of his community, his people, and people all over Illinois and across the country because he sought to empower and to give a voice to the people who were voiceless. Long live Richard Barnett. General Leave Mr. DANNY K. DAVIS of Illinois. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that Members may have 5 days in which to revise and extend their remarks. The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from Illinois? There was no objection. Mr. DANNY K. DAVIS of Illinois. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time. ____________________
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