David Perdue: “I stand before this body today with a troubled heart, as most of us do, but that is not good enough. We have to kind of…”

“I stand before this body today with a troubled heart, as most of us do, but that is not good enough. We have to kind of put away our own biases, our own prejudice. I am not talking about racial; I am talking about political. Today we have an opportunity to do something, to start a process. Words are cheap in this body. I hear a lot of empty words. I hope not to add to that quantity today. When I was a kid growing up in the Deep South, Martin Luther King wrote a letter from a jail cell in Birmingham to Black preachers in that community. He encouraged them to turn away from the violence that had such a potentially devastating impact and to seek reform peacefully; that in the long term, that was the better approach. My father had me read that letter. I gave a speech a couple years ago, and I quoted from that letter. It meant something to me as a young White man in the Deep South. Almost 57 years ago, on the other end of the National Mall from where we stand today, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., I believe, changed the world--certainly impacted millions of lives. Standing before thousands of people, he shared his dream. He dreamed of a world where justice would prevail over prejudice. He dreamed of an America where everyone would be judged not by the color of their skin but by the depth of their character. Since that day in 1963, a lot has changed in our country for the better. Unfortunately, Dr.…”