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NORTON PRAISES LIFE AND WORK OF HER MOVEMENT FRIEND JAMES FORMAN - January 11, 2005

January 11, 2006

NORTON PRAISES LIFE AND WORK OF HER MOVEMENT FRIEND JAMES FORMAN
January 11, 2005

Washington, DC—Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton today issued a statement on the passing of Mr. James Forman, former Executive Secretary of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Norton’s full statement follows.

“Today, I have lost a great friend and so has America. The District of Columbia, where Jim lived, is grateful that he brought his lifelong dedication to civil rights to our struggle for D.C. voting rights and statehood. James Forman, at the zenith of his powers, was a one-man virtuoso, who brought to bear each and every skill that made it possible for men like him to change America. The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) had remarkable chairmen, but only one leader. We were often transient students. Some, like Rep. John Lewis, were fearlessly brave. But, Jim was the stable rock-- just as militant, but older with a level head and a strong, strategic intellect. Jim performed an organizational miracle in holding together a loose band of nonviolent revolutionaries who simply wanted to act together to eliminate racial discrimination and terror. As a result, SNCC had an equal place at the table with all the major civil rights organizations of the 1960s. Americans may not know Jim’s name as a household word, but if they look around them at the racial change in our country, they will know Jim by his work.”