Campaign to rename Senate structure builds

WASHINGTON, Dec. 1 (UPI) -- Civil rights activist Dick Gregory's campaign to rename a U.S. Senate office building is reportedly gaining steam.

Roll Call, a newspaper covering events on Capitol Hill, reported Monday Gregory says 39 Senate offices have indicated they would support legislation stripping the name of the late Richard Russell, D-Ga., from the Russell Senate Office Building.

Russell, who led the U.S. Senate's southern bloc for several decades, was an avowed segregationist who opposed the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Brown vs. Board of Education, which outlawed the idea that public accommodations could be "separate but equal."

Gregory told the paper representatives of his group met with 45 Senate offices and just six said they would not support his effort.

No one has yet stepped forward, however, to sponsor the legislation. The Russell Building is one of three in which members of the senate maintain personal offices.

The others are named for the late Illinois Republican Everett Dirksen and for the late Michigan Democrat Phil Hart.