Barbara Lee: “I thank the gentlewoman for yielding to me, and I want to respond to Chairman McHenry and thank the gentleman for…”

“I thank the gentlewoman for yielding to me, and I want to respond to Chairman McHenry and thank the gentleman for bringing up the story about George Wallace. I have an addendum to the story. I was working in her campaign during that period, and I was furious that she would go to visit segregationist and racist George Wallace. I called her, and I was about ready to leave the campaign because, to me, that was so inconsistent with who she was. She took me to task again, and she said: Little girl, we have to remember we all are human beings, first of all. This is the right thing to do. He is paralyzed, and you never know what might happen when I go visit him. I will tell you what happened when she visited him. I have to say hello and salute Peggy Wallace Kennedy, who is a friend and who lives in Birmingham, Alabama. Peggy, several years ago, told me the story of what happened in that hospital room. If my colleagues have seen the film ``Shirley,'' that really accurately depicts what happened, what Peggy told me, but Shirley Chisholm went and visited George Wallace. She chilled me out a little bit. I stayed with the campaign, thank God. She talked to him, she prayed with him, and she encouraged him to look at his ways, his views, and his horrible treatment of Black people. Peggy told me that he prayed. She prayed. Fast-forward to after he got out of the hospital. He went to Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in his wheelchair.…”