Political Quotes

“I rise again to honor the life and legacy of John Robert Lewis, a civil rights hero, mentor, and dear friend. It is rare that you grow up to meet your hero and rarer still that you get to befriend them. Growing up in Selma, Alabama, and a lifelong member of Brown Chapel AME Church, year after year, I would sit and marvel at those foot soldiers coming to my church to reenact that Bloody Sunday. There was Coretta Scott King and Joseph Lowery. There was Amelia Boynton Robinson, but, of course, there was John Lewis. Never in my wildest dreams did I think that I would grow up and become Alabama's first Black congresswoman and not only walk the halls with John Lewis but get to sit on the same committee with John Lewis. John was a slice of home for me in Congress. You see, looking into his eyes, I would see home, and all I would want to do is emulate home. John was a chief deputy whip, so I wanted to be a chief deputy whip. John was on the Ways and Means Committee. Sounded good to me. John was always allowing people to radiate in his smile and in his light. He could never talk about voting rights--if I were within earshot, he would say: ``And Terri Sewell represents Selma. Where is Terri?'' And we would laugh. Those private moments were so precious to me. Those are the moments that I will cherish. When I would call him the boy from Troy, he would call me the girl from Selma. We would laugh at how far our State had come, how far our Nation had come.…”