James Norton: “I feel what is happening in Iraq with great and moving nostalgia because it reminds me of the first African Americans…”

“I feel what is happening in Iraq with great and moving nostalgia because it reminds me of the first African Americans who voted after the Civil War. It reminds me that this is the 40th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and what it meant for people in Alabama and Georgia to come to the polls for the first time. There is unanimous applause for the people of Iraq who risked their lives to come to the polls. They did not just vote. Many of them knew they were risking life and limb to vote. They know, however, and we know where the risk was greatest, and that risk was greatest on the Armed Forces of the United States and their allies who made this right possible. Mr. Speaker, I come forward to say that no people in our country more appreciate that vote on January 30 than the people in the District of Columbia. In the District of Columbia, lives were lost for the vote in Iraq. But these residents are the progeny of 2 centuries of District residents who have gone to war without a vote.”