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Brooks Hays

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Obituary for Brooks Hays in the Washington Post 8/15/81 [handwritten script] The Washington Post [handwritten script] Brooks Hays "I would not recognize myself as a man of courage. I would prefer to speak in terms of the values we are defending.... The patriot and the dissenter may inhabit the same heart. We are not really disunited; we are merely enjoying our freedoms. Any sectional cleavages should merely spur us to greater exertions in building bridges of understanding." What Brooks Hays did not recognize about himself—that he was a man of extraordinary courage—was never more nationally apparent than when he exerted himself fearlessly as a builder of those "bridges of understanding" in 1957—a southern congressman who stood up for racial moderation in the thick of a bitter clash over the desegregation of Central High School in Little Rock, Ark. Mr. Hays, who died Monday in Chevy Chase at the age of 83, knowingly risked— and then suffered—political defeat the following year at the hands of a segregationist write-in candidate. But he never lost the respect of all who appreciated his promotion of good will, his sponsorship of humanitarian causes and his contributions to public service. For 16 years before that defeat, Mr. Hays had represented the people of the 5th District of Arkansas with an unflagging commitment to racial understanding. When the then-governor of the state, Orval E. Faubus, ordered the Arkansas National Guard to block school desegregation, President Eisenhower responded by ordering U.S. troops to enforce desegregation orders. Mr. Hays...
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Text
Format:
Newsprint, 5.5 Long X 7 Wide
Created Date:
October 15, 1981
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