Political Quotes

“I just want to reflect on why we're here. Mr. Lewis and I brought this resolution because it's the 50th anniversary of SNCC. There were other civil rights organizations as well, the NAACP, there was the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, there was CORE, and there was SNCC. SNCC came about at a time when this country was ripe for change and helped really light the fire that ignited a Nation to see the injustices and bring about the change that came about in the sixties. When you think about what's happened in 50 years, that we're here on the floor of the House of Representatives, Mr. Speaker, honoring the founding of SNCC, an organization when it was founded and it was exercising its purposes, it was sneered and jeered and disdained by most people in America because they were upsetting America. They were bringing about change that people didn't understand and people resisted. And there were a lot of people that thought that the people involved in these organizations should be jailed, they were un-American, they were Communists, they were Socialists. That same rhetoric that you sometimes hear today you heard 50 years ago about these organizations that helped make America the more perfect Union it is, and to bring about the liberties that we really should enjoy, that Jefferson wrote about, but that were words on paper, not in practice.”