Political Quotes

“I want to simply say that perhaps the greatest monument to Medgar Wiley Evers would be to see the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Thompson) on this floor. The notion in 1963 that there could be an African American in the Congress of the United States from the State of Mississippi was very far removed from where we were. We were literally trying to get a cup of coffee and trying to teach people how to respond to the people at the voter registration place just to get the right to vote. The gentleman from California (Mr. Thompson) is the first African American to be elected from the State since Reconstruction. In his own right, he is an historic figure and one that people who love freedom around the country are proud of, precisely because of the reputation of Mississippi. That is Mississippi before. The gentleman from California (Mr. Thompson) represents Mississippi after. This is a State where a third of the voters are African Americans, more voters are African Americans than in any other State, and one might expect that there would be more than one African American in Congress, and yet when the gentleman pressed through to become the first in the 20th century, it was a real landmark.”