Eva M. Clayton: “for me it was an opportunity to reconnect and to be revived. I think sometimes we live through an experience and do not…”

“for me it was an opportunity to reconnect and to be revived. I think sometimes we live through an experience and do not know all the details, but we think we know them. For me to go back and actually see the places for the first time, as a person who was active in civil rights, not in Alabama but my own little local area, to understand how profound those individuals had to be, how courageous they had to be, and how significant their involvement meant in terms of progress, and how the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Dickey) said that Rosa Parks was an average person who did an extraordinary thing, and how that extraordinary thing on the part of ordinary people meant just a difference in the Americans' response. I think the other thing that was good for me, and I want to thank the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Lewis) and the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Upton) as well, is bringing those of us who are more experienced in the civil rights group together and those who never have been involved. Those of us who think of ourselves as experienced sometimes get a little calloused. We kind of forget the significance of the battles that the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Lewis) did or others did or Rosa Parks did. We kind of need to be revived. So for me it was a revival and a motivation. The thought I had going back home at the 'hood was not so much I need to do it with my white citizens as well, but I needed to do it for my children who are now adults.…”