Political Quotes

“Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I want to say to the chairman, I am just so delighted and thankful and grateful for all of his work on behalf of this bill. Madam Speaker, I am proud to rise today in support of my bill, H.R. 35, the Emmett Till Antilynching Act. Lynching, Madam Speaker, plain and simple, is an American evil. This atrocity is comparable to the French use of the guillotine, the Roman Empire's use of crucifixion, and the British use of drawing and quartering as a tool of terrorism. And for too long, Madam Speaker, Federal law against lynching has remained conspicuously silent. In 1918, 102 years ago, a Congressman from Missouri, Leonidas C. Dyer, introduced the first antilynching legislation to actually pass the House, a bill that would subsequently die in the Senate. Therefore, I am pleased that the language that we are voting on today has already been approved by the Senate, and I am exceptionally hopeful that it will face no further obstacles on its path to the President's desk. Madam Speaker, many may consider lynching to be a relic of the past, but as we all know, unfortunately, recent events have shown us that this is not the case. Instead, we have seen a rise in race-based violence that has culminated in events like the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, or the racially motivated mass shooting in El Paso, Texas.…”