The Russell Senate Office Building-Leave It Alone

There are three Senate office buildings, and each one is named for a Senator who left a significant mark on the institution. The Dirksen building is named for Illinois Republican Senator Everett Dirksen, who served as Republican Minority leader during the turbulent 60s, and who helped to break the Southern Democratic filibuster against the 1964 Civil Rights Act.  The Hart building is named for  Senator Philip Hart (D-Michigan), who died in 1976 while still in office. Hart, who was called the conscience of the Senate, was known for his rock solid integrity, particularly when it came to the appearance of impropriety vis a vis lobbyists and influence. He refused to accept even a box of chocolates from a lobbyist.

 

The third Senate office building is named for Richard Brevard Russell, Jr. (D-Georgia), who served in the Senate from 1933 until his death in 1971. Russell, who had been governor of Georgia before being elected to the Senate, supported FDR’s New Deal program. Russell was also the chief sponsor of the National School Lunch Act, which provides free or reduced cost lunches to millions of impoverished American children. He was a member of the Warren Commission, and he was chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, where he played a crucial role in diffusing the crisis caused when President Truman relieved General of the Army Douglas MacArthur for insubordination during the Korean War.  As chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and one of Lyndon Johnson’s most valuable mentors, Russell repeatedly warned Johnson about getting more deeply involved in Vietnam, advice that Johnson should have heeded.

But Russell is best known as a staunch segregationist, who fought every civil rights bill brought before Congress while he was a Senator. It was Senator Russell who, with Senator Strom Thurmond, co-authored the Southern Manifesto. This document stated that the Supreme Court had committed a “clear abuse of judicial power” when it struck down laws mandating segregated schools in Brown v Board of Education. The Manifesto promised to use “all lawful means to bring about a reversal of this decision which is contrary to the Constitution and to prevent the use of force in its implementation.” Nearly every southern Democratic Congressman and Senator signed the Manifesto. Russell led the filibuster against the Civil Rights Bill of 1964, and when that bill passed, he led a Southern boycott of the 1964 Democratic Convention. Russell also fought the Voting Rights Bill of 1965. While he wasn’t a vocal racist like Mississippi Senators Theodore Bilbo and James Eastland, who would frequently use the word nigger on the Senate floor, Russell firmly believed in white supremacy and the inferiority of non-white races, especially the African American race.

Russell has a building named for him due to his longevity in the Senate and his uncanny ability to get bills passed in a bipartisan manner. With that being said, the naming of that building for him has always been a source of friction,  especially as the Democratic Party moved away from its Southern segregationist wing and embraced a more progressive policy on racial integration. The proposal to rename the Russell building for Senator John McCain was first suggested by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) the day after McCain died. The New York Times and Washington Post have both endorsed this idea, and given the current state of political and racial division currently running through the country, this proposal may gain momentum.

I think the name should stay the same. Yes, Russell was a segregationist and a white supremacist, but that was acceptable behavior when he was a U.S. Senator. Russell’s character and actions are part of our history. Leaving his name on that building serves a stark reminder of what this country used to be, and we need reminders like that. Across the street from the Russell building is the Dirksen building, named for the Republican Senate Minority Leader who marshaled the men and woman (Margaret Chase Smith of Maine was the sole woman in the Senate in 1964) on his side of the aisle to break Russell’s filibuster and obstruction of the passage of of the 1964 Civil Rights bill. I view the juxtaposition of those two buildings just as I view the juxtaposition of USS Arizona and USS Missouri in Pearl Harbor. The Arizona memorial contains the remains of hundreds of sailors who were killed during the Pearl Harbor attack, an attack that crippled  the Pacific fleet for months. The Missouri represents the triumph of American willpower and force that destroyed Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. Barely 100 yards of open water separate these two memorials, with the Arizona showing America at one of its weakest points and Missouri showing America at one of its strongest.

Leave Russell’s name on the building. When we destroy monuments to less than savory people, we forget what made them so unsavory, thus making it easier for someone far worse to rise up and take their place.