Political Quotes

“in the days since we lost our colleague Congressman John Lewis, many of us have come to the floor to talk about his extraordinary courage and tenacity. At the age of 25--25--he joined 600 civil rights activists to march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, AL, in pursuit of the right to vote. We have talked about how that day became known as Bloody Sunday, after John and the other courageous marchers were met with brutal beatings from Alabama State troopers, and how, in the days that followed, President Lyndon B. Johnson called on Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act. It was 55 years ago this week that President Johnson sat at a desk in the President's Room right off this Chamber, a room that we walk by many times each week, and signed the Voting Rights Act into law. He noted at the signing ceremony: [L]ast March, with the outrage of Selma still fresh, I came down to this Capitol one evening and asked Congress and the people for swift and for sweeping action to guarantee to every man and woman the right to vote. In less than 48 hours, I sent the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to Congress. In little more than 4 months the Congress, with overwhelming majorities, enacted one of the most monumental laws in the history of American freedom. Those were the words of Lyndon Johnson. He signed the Voting Rights Act in 1965.…”