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[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E728]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
IN RECOGNITION OF THE LIFE AND LEGACY OF BRUCE WATKINS, JR.
______
HON. EMANUEL CLEAVER
of missouri
in the house of representatives
Tuesday, August 4, 2020
Mr. CLEAVER. Madam Speaker, it is with a heavy heart that I rise
today to honor the life and legacy of Mr. Bruce Watkins, Jr. Mr.
Watkins spent his days on Earth fighting to preserve, honor, and
protect the stories of the African Americans who helped build and grow
Kansas City, living a life that deserves both recognition and
reflection.
Mr. Watkins was born in the time of Emmett Till and Rosa Parks, into
a family with a profound and unwavering commitment to advancing the
cause of civil rights in Kansas City. His father was both a co-founder
and the second president of Freedom, Incorporated, Kansas City's local,
Black political organization, as well as the first African American
elected to the City Council of Kansas City. In 1966, his father was
elected a Circuit Court Clerk, making him the first Black person
elected to Jackson County government, and would later become the first
African American to nearly win a KC mayoral race. As a former city
council member and Kansas City's first African American Mayor, I know
that the path I walk was planned, plowed, and paved by Bruce Watkins,
Sr. It has been an honor to watch Bruce Watkins, Jr. valiantly carry
his father's mission into the 21st century.
Mr. Watkins grew up alongside the African American Civil Rights
Movement, went to Southeast High School, and then studied at University
of Nevada-Las Vegas' College of Business, where he graduated in 1977
with a Bachelor of Science in Human Resources Management and Services.
Thirteen years later, he would return to school to earn his Associate
degree at Kansas City Kansas Community College's School of Mortuary
Science, before starting his career as a funeral director.
Mr. Watkins was a keeper of stories. As a funeral director at the
Watkins Brothers Memorial Chapel, Mr. Watkins spent thirty-one years
performing the unglamorous but noble work of honoring our community's
dead and supporting their grieving families. As a leading member of the
Watkins Foundation, he led the campaign to have Kansas City's East
Patrol Crime Lab named after prominent civil rights leader Leon Jordon,
forty-five years after his assassination. As a member of Freedom,
Incorporated, Mr. Watkins aided in the group's mission to register
African American voters in Kansas City, elect them to local office, and
ensure that the voices of Black Kansas Citians were heard within the
halls of government. And as eminent Kansas City leaders, he and his
cousin Warren Watkins, Jr. fought to gain recognition for the slaves
likely buried at the site of the City's new airport. Mr. Watkins was
integral to that continued mission to make sure that those we welcome
to our magnificent city also know of its painful past, etching a
symbolic headstone of history for his ancestors whose graves remain
largely unmarked.
I was proud to call Mr. Watkins a dear friend and am humbled not only
by his life of service but also by the task of paying tribute to it. On
this day, I wonder how to properly honor someone who spent his whole
life honoring others--how one can do justice to the story of a lifelong
storyteller. Perhaps, the answer lies in not only telling Mr. Watkins'
story but also the stories he was passionate about preserving. When we
in the Missouri 5th drive on Bruce R. Watkins Memorial Drive or pass by
the Bruce R. Watkins Cultural Center--when we look upon the Spirit of
Freedom Fountain or drive by the Green Duck Lounge--when we tell the
stories of Fred Curls or Lucile Bluford or Leon Jordon--we honor the
life and work of Bruce Watkins, Jr. May God allow him to continue that
work in the company of that other great storyteller, who told us all of
the Sower, the Weeds, and the Mustard Seed. I think they'll get along
well.
As the keeper of a history he helped make, Mr. Watkins continued a
four-generation story of a family and a city that loved and challenged
one another. Madam Speaker, please join me in honoring the life of
Bruce Watkins, Jr. Let us all seek to emulate his example by preserving
the stories that tell us who we are as a people and a nation and let
one of those stories be his.