Political Quotes

“I also want to commend and congratulate the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Lewis) and the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Watts) for their introduction to a very important piece of legislation. As a matter of fact, it is my hope and my understanding, as well as my desire, that passage of this legislation will help shed additional light on an extreme dark period in the history of this Nation, because as we look back to better understand where we came from, it helps us to recognize how we got to where we are, and then helps propel us into the future in relationship to where we need to be going. Carter G. Woodson, the founder of Black History Month, African-American History Month, once said that while we should not underestimate the achievements of our Nation's greatest architects, builders, and industrialists, we should give credit to those slaves who so largely supplied the demand for labor. This resolution will do just that, and I would hope that as historians write, that in the near future we will see in the history books in every classroom throughout this great Nation the contributions of those whose sweat, whose hard labor, whose intense drive helped to produce not only a magnificent edifice, but helped to provide an opportunity for democracy to grow and flourish.”