We all have these memories of Mr. Lewis, and some of you knew him far longer and far better than I did, but I can just tell you this: The time that I spent with Mr. Lewis that I remember the most was not so much in a committee hearing or not so much on the floor, but in March of 2015 when I took my 8-year-old grandson to Selma for the 50th anniversary of crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge. We started off in Birmingham and went to the Baptist church. And George, my grandson, could not understand, when we were looking at this, he was looking at some men in hoods. He said: Grandpa, who are those guys? I said: Those are the Ku Klux Klan. He said: Who are they? I said: George, these are people that you don't want to be associated with. They are haters. He said: Well, what did they do? I said: Well, this is the church they bombed, and they killed little girls that were practicing for a choir. And he goes: Why would anybody want to kill little girls? I said: Because they were filled with hate. They weren't filled with love. Now, at that same trip, Mr. Lewis was with us. Mr. Lewis was there. And I said: Mr. Lewis, I just want you to meet my grandson, George. And he stopped and he talked to George. And George said to him: Mr. Lewis, why do they have on hoods? If they are so tough and they are so brave and they are so courageous, why did they have to wear a hood? He said: George, at 8-years-old, you get it far better than some adults do.…
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