Political Quotes

“sometimes, when I am asked to describe my politics, I say, ``I believe in the Gospel of Saints Paul''--Paul the Apostle, Paul Douglas, Paul Simon, and Paul Wellstone. Paul the Apostle was, of course, one of the most important figures in the history of the early Christian Church. Paul Douglas, Paul Simon, and Paul Wellstone were Members of this Senate and champions of human rights and human dignity. This Friday, another champion of human rights and human dignity--Dr. Timuel Black--will honored by Citizen Action Illinois with its ninth annual Pauls Award, named for Paul Simon and Paul Wellstone. I am lucky enough to have been friends with both Pauls--Simon and Wellstone. I am sure that they would have approved heartily of the decision to honor Dr. Black with an award bearing their names. Dr. Timuel Black is a decorated World War II veteran, an educator, author, labor leader, civil rights activist, and historian--and a bender of the moral arc of the universe. He is a visionary and--for me and so many others--a personal hero. Timuel Black was born in 1918, in Birmingham, AL--the son of a sharecropper and the grandson of slaves. He was 8 months old when his family moved to Chicago--the first wave of the great migration of African Americans from the Deep South to the North. They settled in a part of town called the Black Belt, now known as Bronzeville.…”