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It was Thurmond’s annual task to get the Senate to adopt a resolution identifying a certain week, and later September, as “Black College Month,” usually coinciding with the annual conference of the White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Sure as clockwork, Tongour showed up in late August 1985 with his Senate resolution seeking the signature of my boss, Sen. Paul Simon, on Thurmond’s resolution. Tongour’s arrival provided a great opportunity – the one I had been seeking – to secure some bipartisan support for Simon’s effort’s to move his Historically Black College and University Act bill in the Senate.
As a recently elected senator from Illinois and a member of the minority Democratic Party at that time, Simon had little clout on the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee. Sens. Edward M. “Ted” Kennedy of Massachusetts and Claiborne Pell of Rhode Island occupied the positions of leadership on the Democratic side. Sen. Robert T. “Bob” Stafford of Vermont was committee chair and Sen. Dan Quayle of Indiana was a key leader on education and job-training issues for the Republicans. I knew I needed help, and there were few members of the Labor and Human Resources Committee with HBCUs in their states. South Carolina was one of them.
