The Honorable Marge Roukema

Another day, another passing. Today New Jersey lost former Congresswoman Marge Roukema who was 85 years-old. She was a Republican elected in 1980; the same year Ronald Reagan won the presidency. Her first term in office would be Millicent Fenwick’s last term in Congress, but neither women knew that at the time.

As a freshman, Roukema sought Fenwick’s sage advice. Back then Fenwick was known for the uncanny amount of time she spent on the House floor. What most didn’t realize was that her time was more calculated than her peers gave her credit for. That became clear to me when I interviewed Roukema. She relayed how Fenwick told her “You need to sit on the floor to get to know your colleagues. Get to know them, not only in committee, but on the floor when debates are going on. It is then you can learn to judge whose opinions you can trust, and whose opinions you must be skeptical of. Be able to evaluate them.”

“That was wonderful advice,” said Roukema. “The first year or so I spent a lot of time on the floor listening to debates . . . and got a sense of things. Not only the issues but a sense of the evaluation of the people that were presenting things and who was being superficial and political and who was being substantive and incisive. It was excellent advice. Of course, she [Fenwick] was always there. Third row on the aisle.”[i]

What I did not know until today was that Roukema was the longest serving woman in the House of Representatives, serving eleven terms from 1981 – 2003. Since 2003 New Jersey has not sent a woman to Congress, but all that has just changed. Last week, Assemblywoman Bonnie Watson Coleman, a Democrat, was elected to the House. When she takes office in January she will be the first woman elected to Congress from New Jersey since Roukema retired more than a decade ago. It’s about time.

[i] Amy Schapiro, Millicent Fenwick: Her Way (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2003), 153.

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John Doar

Today the nation learned that we lost another hero from the Civil Rights Era – John Doar, He worked alongside Nicholas Katzenbach at the Department of Justice and served as the head of the Civil Rights Division during Katzenbach’s tenure as Attorney General. Like Katzenbach, Doar was at many pivotal events in this nation’s fight for equal rights. It was John Doar who escorted James Meredith when he desegregated Ole Miss in 1962, and it was Doar who helped diffuse a tense situation in the wake of Medgar Evans murder a year later. And it was Doar who successfully prosecuted and got convictions in the highly publicized murder case that gripped the nation of three civil rights volunteers, Michael Schwerner, James Chaney and Andrew Goodman.

A couple of years ago, fellow author and friend, Henry Gallagher, led the charge for John Doar to be recognized for his service to this nation with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Gallagher succeeded in his quest and in 2012 President Barack Obama awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to John Doar. Just this week the White House announced this year’s recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom and among the nineteen individuals who will receive this honor are Michael Schwerner, James Chaney and Andrew Goodman posthumously.

While I was fortunate to meet John Doar on several occasions and chat with him about Katzenbach, he was a man of few words. He always agreed to an interview, but actually scheduling it proved to be a challenge and one that I never accomplished.

On this Veteran’s Day while we remember and salute those who have served and currently serve to protect this nation and the freedoms we enjoy, we also remember another a freedom fighter – John Doar, may he rest in peace.