August 6, 2020 - Issue: Vol. 166, No. 140 — Daily Edition116th Congress (2019 - 2020) - 2nd Session
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REMEMBERING THE REVEREND DR. C.T. VIVIAN; Congressional Record Vol. 166, No. 140
(Senate - August 06, 2020)
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[Page S5262] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov] REMEMBERING THE REVEREND DR. C.T. VIVIAN Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, in his powerful eulogy for Congressman John Lewis, President Barack Obama described John Lewis as a man who ``brought this country a little bit closer to our highest ideals.'' President Obama went on to say, ``And someday when we do finish that long journey towards freedom, when we do form a more perfect union-- whether it's years from now or decades or even if it takes another two centuries--John Lewis will be a founding father of that fuller, fairer, better America.'' Such a beautiful and fitting epitaph. Another founder of that ``fuller, fairer, better America'' was the Reverend Dr. C.T. Vivian. C.T. Vivian and John Lewis departed this life on the same day. The timing of their leaving is proof, perhaps, that Mark Twain was right when he said that history does not repeat itself, but sometimes it rhymes. Who was C.T. Vivian? Martin Luther King called him ``the greatest preacher ever to live.'' The Reverend Gerald Durley, who met C.T. Vivian in 1960 when Durley was a member of the Nashville Student Movement and who delivered the eulogy at his home going, called Dr. Vivian ``the most patient impatient man'' he ever met. Patient with people but impatient with injustice. C.T. Vivian was mentor to John Lewis, Diane Nash, and many other brave young civil rights activists a half century ago. Before they sat at those segregated lunch counters or boarded those Freedom Rider buses, Dr. Vivian taught them about the tactics--and the transformative power--of nonviolent civil disobedience. He was as a Baptist minister, an early civil rights organizer, and a member of Martin Luther King's inner circle or advisers. As field general for Dr. King and his Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Dr. Vivian was the national director of some 85 local affiliate chapters of the SCLC from 1963 to 1966, directing protest activities and training in nonviolence, and coordinating voter registration and community development projects. He led passive protests through angry mobs and was beaten viciously by segregationists, but he never once struck back. He received his first beating in 1961 on a Freedom Ride to Mississippi. In 1964, a white mob beat him with chains and nearly drowned him in the Atlantic Ocean in St. Augustine, FL. In Selma, AL, in 1965, 2 weeks before Bloody Sunday, Dr. Vivian was trying to register Africa-American residents to vote when Sheriff Jim Clark punched him in the mouth so hard that the blow sent the minister reeling down the courthouse steps. Sheriff Clark then ordered deputies to arrest him for ``criminal provocation.'' Television coverage of Dr. Vivian being dragged away, blood streaming down his face, helped galvanize the voting rights movement. C.T. Vivian was a hero to all Americans, but many in my State feel a special connection to him because of the formative years he spent among us. He was, like many great Illinoisans, an adopted son of the Land of Lincoln. He was born Cordy Tindell Vivian in Boonville, Missouri, on July 30, 1924, the only child of Robert and Euzetta Tindell Vivian. His father left the family when he was a baby. His mother lost the family farm in the Depression and the family home in town to arson. When C.T. was 6, he moved with this mother and maternal grandmother to Macomb, Illinois. The women chose Macomb because its public schools were integrated. They had great expectations for C.T. and they believed in the power of education. C.T. Vivian joined his first protest in Peoria, IL, in 1947, helping to desegregate a downtown cafeteria. In many parts of Illinois at the time, segregation of public facilities was not a law, but it was a custom rigidly enforced. He first heard Dr. King speak in 1957, while studying for the ministry at the American Baptist College in Nashville. In 1959, he met th Reverend James Lawson, who was teaching nonviolent strategies to members of the Nashville Student Movement, including a young John Lewis. After leaving the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1966, Dr. Vivian returned to Illinois--this time to Chicago--to direct the Urban Training Center for Christian Missions, where he trained clergy, community leaders and others to organize. He worked to advance civil rights and educational and economic opportunities for African Americans, and to reduce the gang violence that ensnared to many young Black men. He left Chicago in 1972 to become dean of the Shaw University Divinity School in Raleigh, NC. He moved to Atlanta later in the 1970s and founded the C.T. Vivian Leadership Institute, to continue to train the next generation of leaders in the principals and tactics of nonviolent change. In 2013, Dr. Vivian received the Presidential Medal of Freedom--our Nation's highest civilian honor, from President Barack Obama. It was a moving and historic moment and I was honored to be there. He died on July 17, 2 weeks shy of his 96th birthday. He is buried in Atlanta next to his fellow foot soldier for justice, Dr. King. In the last calendar year, we have lost Elijah Cummings, the Reverend Dr. Joseph Lowry, John Lewis and Dr. C.T. Vivian--all giants in the civil rights movement. This is the passing of a great generation, founders of the ``fuller, fairer, better America,'' as President Obama said. As we mourn their passing, let us also give thanks for their lives, and resolve to use the blueprints they left us to continue towards a more perfect union. ____________________
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