Heidi Alexander: “I thank the Senator from Alabama for including me today in the reading of Dr. King's letter from the Birmingham jail.…”

“I thank the Senator from Alabama for including me today in the reading of Dr. King's letter from the Birmingham jail. Senator Jones has standing to do this not just because he is from Alabama but because of his work as a U.S. attorney prosecuting Klansmen who blew up a church on 16th Street in Birmingham, killing children. Senator Jones said that all of this was not too long ago. It was not too long ago for me. I remember a day--on August 28, 1963. I was a student at that time at New York University School of Law with an internship in the U.S. Department of Justice. It was a hot summer day, and the streets were filled with the March on Washington. It was about lunchtime, I believe, that I went outside into that crowd, and I heard a booming voice from a man who was standing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. I heard the words that he hoped his four little children one day would ``live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin.'' I am not sure, at that time and at that age, that I understood fully what I was seeing and hearing, but I was hearing Dr. King's ``I Have a Dream'' speech. In 1962, a year earlier, I was a senior at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. It was not that long ago, but a lot has changed since then. Vanderbilt, a prestigious institution, just in that year was desegregating its undergraduate school. I was a part of that effort.…”