[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 26 (Tuesday, March 8, 2005)] [Senate] [Page S2241] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov] TRIBUTE TO SAMUEL T. DANIELSMr. SARBANES. Mr. President, With the death on January 6th, 2005, at the age of 82 of Samuel Thornton Daniels, Sr., my city of Baltimore and the State of Maryland lost a distinguished citizen, a courageous and far-sighted leader, a source of inspiration and, especially, a beloved friend. Sam Daniels, the Grand Master, was known to his fellow members of the Prince Hall Masons simply as ``The Grand,'' and grand he was. A Baltimorean through and through, he was born in the city and educated at Douglass High School and Coppin State College. He married his beloved wife Gladys, a fellow student at Coppin, and together for more than 60 years they went on to raise a new generation of Baltimoreans. Sam made our community a better place for all its people. Service to others came naturally to Sam Daniels. He interrupted his college studies to serve in the Army in World War II, returning to Coppin State to receive his degree in 1948. When the Korean War conflict broke out 2 years later, Sam returned to military service, and reached the rank of captain before receiving his honorable discharge. Soon thereafter he joined Gladys as a teacher in the Baltimore public school system. In the mid-1950s, Sam Daniels set out on the path that was to shape his life's work. It was not just that he joined the civil rights movement; rather, in innumerable ways he shaped it and he led it. His professional commitments tell part of the story: Maryland Commission on Interracial Problems and Relations; Baltimore Community Relations Commission; Baltimore Equal Employment Opportunity Commission; and then, starting in 1967 and continuing for more than two decades, the Baltimore Council for Equal Business Opportunity, or CEBO. During the 1960s, in addition to his other commitments, Sam also worked for the AFSCME local unions representing Baltimore's municipal workers. In 1968 he was named to the city's school board by then-Mayor D'Alessandro, where his intelligence, his principles, his clear vision, and his wise and generous temperament all combined to make him, as the mayor was to observe, ``a calming influence on the board during an unsettling time.'' Sam balanced his professional commitments with his role in The Prince Hall Masons, whose Grand Master he was to become and who knew and loved him as ``The Grand.'' Under his leadership The Prince Hall Masons grew to have 5,000 members and to play a major role in the historic movement toward civil rights. When Dr. King came to Baltimore in October 1964, Sam Daniels stood among the leaders who welcomed him to the Prince Hall Masons Lodge. In everything he did he challenged us to make our Nation live up to its ideals. Of all his many accomplishments, Sam Daniels considered CEBO the most important. It began modestly enough with a grant from the Ford Foundation, but over more than two decades under Sam Daniels' leadership CEBO became one of the first business development organizations in the country, helping to create opportunities for entrepreneurship and business where precious few existed for Baltimore's African-American community and along with those opportunities, new hopes, new plans, and new dreams. Sam Daniels has been described as a ``giant'' and an ``icon,'' and surely these words reflect the critical role he played in expanding the opportunities for African American entrepreneurship and wealth-building, which has meant so much to the city that he served in so many different ways. Sam Daniels was a giant and an icon in other ways as well in character and temperament. Mayor D'Alessandro, who nearly 40 years ago appointed him to the school board, remembers him as ``an absolutely decent human being,'' and his pastor, the Reverend Marion C. Bascom, calls him ``the most giving human being this city has ever known.'' In the words of George L. Russell, the former city solicitor and judge, ``he was a temperate person who conveyed a great deal of wisdom.'' He was a great man and a great citizen, and he has left us all a magnificent legacy. We will miss him, and our thoughts are with his wife Gladys, his children, and his grandchildren. The Baltimore Sun paid tribute to Sam Daniels in an obituary published on January 8, 2005. I ask that it be printed in the Record. The material follows. [From the Baltimore Sun, Jan. 8, 2005] Samuel T. Daniels, 82, Leader in Local Civil Rights Struggle (By Jacques Kelly) Samuel T. Daniels, a local leader in the civil rights movement who championed African-American business enterprise and led the Prince Hall Masons for nearly four decades, died Thursday at Levindale Hebrew Geriatric Center of complications from a fall and a brain illness. The Northwest Baltimore resident was 82. Mr. Daniels had retired in 1989 after more than 20 years as executive director of the Baltimore Council for Equal Business Opportunity, a private organization that encouraged black participation in business. He was also a past grand master of the 5,000-member Prince Hall Lodge, an African- American Masonic organization. ``He was an absolutely decent human being and an integral part of the Baltimore civil rights movement in the 1960s,'' said former Mayor Thomas J. D'Alesandro III, who named Mr. Daniels to the city school board in December 1968. ``He was tough, decent, orderly and competent. He was an articulate spokesman for the black community.'' ``He was the most giving human being this city has ever known,'' said the Rev. Marion C. Bascom, Mr. Daniels' pastor and friend. ``Samuel outstretched his hand to just about everyone I've ever known.'' Born in Baltimore and raised on Druid Hill Avenue, he was a 1940 graduate of Frederick Douglass High School and earned a bachelor's degree in education from what is now Coppin State University. He served in the Army in World War II and the Korean War, attaining the rank of captain. For eight years, he taught in city public schools, including the old Henry H. Garnet School at Division and Lanvale streets. In 1958, he was named executive secretary of the Baltimore Community Relations Commission and simultaneously worked for Baltimore Municipal Employees Local 44 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. In 1961, he attended the Harvard Business School's trade union program. Mr. Daniels was a school board member from 1969 to 1971. ``He was a calming influence on the board during an unsettling time,'' said Mr. D'Alesandro. Mr. Daniels became head of the Prince Hall Masons in the early 1960s and was among the leaders who welcomed the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. to Baltimore on Oct. 31, 1964. Dr. King's visit, including an appearance at the lodge's temple on Eutaw Place, was on behalf of President Lyndon B. Johnson's election campaign. In a 1999 article in The Sun, Mr. Daniels recalled that day and how Baltimore was becoming aggressive in its pursuit of civil rights. The rally filled the temple. ``They became friends after that visit,'' said Mr. Daniels' wife of more than 60 years, the former Gladys Eva Wise. Friends said that Mr. Daniels paid travel expenses so that young civil rights advocates could attend the 1965 marches in Selma, Ala. ``He had been central to the advancement of black people in Baltimore,'' said George L. Russell Jr., a lawyer and former city solicitor and judge. ``He was a man who carried a great deal of dignity. He was a temperate person who conveyed a great deal of wisdom.'' In 1967, Mr. Daniels became director of CEBO, an organization initially supported by the Ford Foundation. A decade later, Mr. Daniels told The Sun that his most important accomplishment had been helping African-American business owners establish relationships with large commercial banks. He also pointed to many black-owned businesses, including the Super Pride grocery chain, as proof that his council was working. In 1982, Mr. Daniels called for voter mobilization in black communities. ``Legislation, more than anything else, influences our lives daily, monthly, weekly and eternally,'' he said at a meeting reported in The Evening Sun. ``If we are not a voting people, those in office are not going to care about us.'' Mr. Daniels was the recipient of many community honors and testimonials. A room has been named after him at Coppin, and Morgan State University awarded him an honorary degree in 2000. Mr. Daniels was a longtime member of Douglas Memorial Church. Mr. Daniels will lie in state from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesday at the Willard W. Allen Masonic Temple, 1301 Eutaw Place. Kappa fraternal services will be held at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday and be followed by Masonic services at 7:30 p.m. Mr. Daniels will rest in a sanctuary named in his honor. A family hour wake will begin at 11 a.m. Thursday. The funeral service begins at noon and will be followed by interment at Arbutus Cemetery. In addition to his wife, Mr. Daniels is survived by two sons, Samuel T. Daniels Jr., chief inspector for the city liquor board, and Van B. Daniels, a manager for the Maryland Lottery; a brother, Edward Daniels; and three grandchildren. All are of Baltimore. ____________________