Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I am a proud Virginian. Virginia is the birthplace of American democracy. It is also the birthplace of American slavery. From the beginning of this country, we have been on the right side of history and the wrong side of history. I am proud to stand here as a history maker in my own right, elected in 2023 as the first African-American woman to represent the Commonwealth of Virginia. How did I get here? My interest in government was sparked by a love of history. My love of history was sparked by my parents. My father, who was born in 1925 in Nashville, Tennessee, spent his summers in Alabama at a school that his grandfather, my great-grandfather, founded because Tennessee did not think Black children were worthy of a high-quality public education. I am the daughter of Lois McClellan, born in the Gulf Coast of Mississippi in 1932, who had to leave her town to become the first member of her family to go beyond the eighth grade because the State of Mississippi did not deem Black children worthy of a quality public education. The Catholic church did, but only to the eighth grade. Listening to my parents' stories as a child, they saw the best of government through the New Deal.”