Political Quotes

“I am by profession an educator and a historian, and from March 5th to March 7th, not only did I become a student of our nation's civil rights history, I saw history come alive during the pilgrimage to Birmingham, Montgomery and Selma. To be led by civil rights leader and my distinguished colleague, Representative John Lewis, was an honor in itself. The events which took place in Alabama were pivotal in our nation's civil rights movement. "Letter from a Birmingham Jail," the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing and the Bloody Sunday march were crucial experiences to America's collective psyche. It was Martin Luther King, Jr., and his devoted supporters who forced Americans to acknowledge the injustices committed against our fellow American citizens. Race relations is extremely, if not more, relevant today. The painful lessons learned in Montgomery, Birmingham and Selma continue to be experienced by minority populations all over the United States. The struggle for political recognition and participation continues not only in the African-American populations, but now in the fast-growing Hispanic American and Asian Pacific Islander American groups. It is only in the past few decades that we have seen the mobilization of Hispanic and Asian Pacific Islander communities, and who knows what racial-oriented movements will awaken at the dawn of the next millennium.”