PUBLIC RELATIONS OFFICE

August 21, 2017

THE HONORABLE KAREN L. HAAS
Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives
U.S. Capitol, Room H154,
Washington, DC 205156601
Open Letter To The U.S. Congress
Re: Removal of Richard Brevard Russell from the Senate office building
bearing his name
Dear Congressmen and women, Senators of the United States,
This is an official petition to the Congress to remove Richard Brevard
Russell from the Senate office building bearing his name, He was a racist
and a segregationist who may have done more to hold back civil rights and
integration in this country than any other single individual, including Strom
Thurmond.

Thurmond wrote the initial draft of the infamous 1956 Southern Manifesto,
the resolution signed by Southern senators and House members stating their
support for segregation and their refusal to obey Brown v. Board of
Education. But Russell rewrote a lot of it and was a key or even the key
figure in rounding up the votes against civil rights legislation.

Russell said while campaigning in 1936, when his opponent was accusing
him of supporting New Deal programs that would promote integration: As
one who was born and reared in the atmosphere of the Old South, with six
generations of my forebears now resting beneath Southern soil, I am willing
to go as far and make as great a sacrifice to preserve and insure white
supremacy in the social, economic, and political life of our state as any man
who lives within her borders.
He opposed every piece of civil rights legislation that came his way. In fact,
he had participated in his first anti-civil-rights filibuster the year before that
1936 election, when he helped block an anti-lynching law. He helped block
another anti-lynching law in 1938. After the war, according to political
scientist Robert D. Loevy in his To End All Segregation, Russell was the
leader of the Southern bloc.

In 1952, he could have become part of the Democratic Partys Senate

leadership structure. But going national in that way meant, as he knew, that
he would have to soften his views on race. He refused.

In 1964, after his party finally succeeded in leading the push for civil rights
legislation, Russell refused to attend the Democratic National Convention in
Atlantic City. And his racial views never changed. He died in 1971, and the
Congress named the building after him the next year.

The Russell Senate office building bearing his name endorses a racist who
spent 30 years making sure black children went to inferior schools and black
adults couldnt vote, promoting hate, terror, slavery, murder, lynching, and
segregation doesnt deserve to have a building honoring his name.

The American people are hoping the 115th Congress will finally act to
remove Richard Brevard Russell from the Senate office building bearing
his name, innocent Americans are still subjected to white supremacy, hate,
terror, racially motivated assassinations, assaults, discrimination, political
rebellion, antisemitism, bigotry and racial violence in honor of Segregation
and the Confederacy, (its monuments and flags in America).

If the Congress refuses to act to remove Richard Russell from the Senate
office building in honor of his name in our view would constitute an utter
dereliction of duty, and failure to uphold the oath of office, to protect and
enforce the U.S. Constitution.
Thanking you in advance,

Mr. Roy L. Perry-Bey

Director Civil Rights
UNITED FRONT FOR JUSTICE
P.O. Box 1772- Hampton, Virginia 23669
ufj2020@gmail.com
804.252.9109
The Russell Senate Office Building (built 1903-1908) is the
oldest of the Senate office building located Northeast of the
Capitol bounded by Constitution Avenue, First Street, Delaware
Avenue, and C Street N.E.Washington, D.C.