Political Quotes

“As I continue to listen and to hear of the great works and the exploits of Myrlie and Medgar Evers, it occurred to me that in order to have a full appreciation that one perhaps should have been living during that time. It just happened for me that I lived not very far from Mississippi at that time. I was a young child growing up in the State of Arkansas and actually lived only about 25 miles from Mississippi, and so I knew a great deal about Mississippi and had relatives who lived in Mississippi, and so we would drive across the Mississippi River at Greenville and go and visit in places like Mound Bayou and Cleveland and Schuller and Lexington and Greenwood and all through the Delta back the other way. There was an environment, there was an atmosphere, as a matter of fact, my brothers and I would sometimes kid ourselves because our father would never have to chastise us in the car to be quiet when we got to Mississippi. I mean, there was a feeling and once we crossed the bridge, we would immediately become silent, and he did not have to say, ``You all be quiet, sit down, do not do things.'' Then when one travels to Mississippi today, they see a very different Mississippi. They see a Mississippi that in many ways has transformed itself from the Mississippi of the past to the Mississippi of the present and moving on to the Mississippi of the future. One can attribute much of that change to Medgar and Myrlie Evers.”