Reverend Harold Middlebrook Post Office Building

Floor Speech

Mr. Speaker, I rise in very strong support of H.R. 9360 for two reasons. One is the reason of process, which is, as I understand it, the unanimous support of the Tennessee congressional delegation, which has always been the process threshold for these bills. Secondly, because of the substance.

Harold Middlebrook was born in Memphis, as my distinguished colleague, Mr. Burchett, tells us. He went to Morehouse and became involved as a college student in the civil rights movement. He was active both with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

At SNCC, he participated with Bob Moses and Ivanhoe Donaldson and a number of the other activists in SNCC, which was the organization that went door to door registering people to vote at great risk to life and limb.

They coined the expression ``one person, one vote'' later assimilated into the Supreme Court's ``one person, one vote'' equal protection discourse in Reynolds v. Sims and Wesberry v. Sanders, but it started as a slogan of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.

Reverend Middlebrook came to pastor churches in Memphis, Bolivar, and Knoxville. He founded the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Commemorative Commission of Knoxville in honor of his late friend.

It is an honor to be able to rise in support of this legislation to create a post office that will be named in honor of Harold Middlebrook. I urge passage of the legislation, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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