Political Quotes

“Their names have been mentioned but warrant re-mentioning: Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson, and Denise McNair--four of God's children, four beautiful assets of America. If you go down into the basement of the church, you see their pictures, you see the memorial--and your heart cries. They were brutally murdered while attending Sunday school, as the leader, Spencer Bachus, and as Terri Sewell have related. My colleagues, let us honor their lives and their faith in the face of the evil of segregation and prejudice and hate. Let us remember the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., from the funeral of three of those four little girls. He said this: They have something to say to each of us in their death. Their death says to us that we must work passionately and unrelentingly for the realization of the American Dream. That fight began with the Declaration of Independence: that we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men--and, surely, Jefferson meant mankind, women as well--are endowed by God, not by the Constitution and not by our votes on this floor, with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. These four little girls had those robbed that day. Let us recommit ourselves. Let us recommit ourselves to that proposition and to unrelentingly and courageously ensure that that dream, that that promise is fulfilled for all of the little children of this Nation and for all the adults as well.…”