Steve Cohen: “I want to thank also Representatives Sewell and Roby for sponsoring this resolution and Congressman Lewis for his life.…”

“I want to thank also Representatives Sewell and Roby for sponsoring this resolution and Congressman Lewis for his life. This is a historic resolution, for the work and the memories need to be preserved. I, like Congressman Sewell, am here because of the work of Congressman Lewis and other civil rights leaders, making this for a better America. I didn't think I needed to go on the pilgrimage because I'm from Memphis and I've been to the Mason Temple where Dr. King made his last speech; and been to Lorraine Motel, the national civil rights museum, on many occasions; and AFSCME hall where he rallied workers, now named for Jerry Wurf. {time} 1010 But when I went to Birmingham, when I went to Montgomery, when I went to Selma, I realized that there was much more history that I needed to know, and there was a way to be filled with the spirit of the civil rights movement, which one is when one goes to the Rosa Parks Museum, the Dexter Street Church, the 16th Street Church, the Civil Rights Institute, and the bridge. It's hard to fathom the way the world was in 1965, but that was only a short number of years ago. This country started with a history of slavery, and it was accepted by the Founding Fathers and others as the way things were. The Founding Fathers were great men, and they wrote words that were great, but they were without absolute meaning because they accepted, as a given, that African Americans should be slaves and women shouldn't have equality.…”