Political Quotes

“I want to thank my friend and colleague from Pennsylvania for that warm introduction, and I want to thank the members of the Congressional Black Caucus. We just returned from South Africa where we participated with thousands of folks from across South Africa memorializing Nelson Mandela. It was a wonderful moment in our lives. But, of course, Nelson Mandela has helped us all to be better persons. He has inspired us all in so many different ways. When I was a member of the California State Legislature, I authored the legislation that divested all of our pension funds from doing business in South Africa. That legislation caught fire across the country. {time} 1915 And so that legislation caught fire across the country, and we had other divestment movements going on, and others divesting their funds from businesses that were doing business in South Africa. We went on to have rallies and marches. We came to Washington, D.C. We got arrested at the South African Embassy. We sat in in the South African consulate in Los Angeles. We worked with students on the college campuses. They got involved in divestment. Some of them took the names of the streets in those campuses down and made them Nelson Mandela Way. And as we worked and worked, we were instrumental in helping to free Nelson Mandela, who had served 27 years in prison.…”