Political Quotes

“nearly 50 years ago, Martin Luther King, Jr., gave his historic ``I Have a Dream'' speech in front of hundreds of thousands of people on the National Mall. At the time, I was entering my last year of law school. I was inspired by the March on Washington and knew that history was being made before my very eyes. The youngest speaker at the March was a compelling man by the name of John Lewis. Many spoke of their unyielding support for civil rights legislation, but John Lewis demanded more. He demanded that the civil rights bill protect the right of every American to vote free from discrimination. With his strong and forceful voice, he proclaimed that ``One man, one vote is the African cry. It is ours too. It must be ours.'' A year and a half later, John Lewis would lead another march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, AL. There, State troopers brutally beat, bloodied, and trampled John Lewis and the group of peaceful marchers he led. Those powerful images from ``Bloody Sunday'' were captured on television and in vivid photographs, and would become a catalyst for the passage of the Voting Rights Act. When President Lyndon Johnson signed the act into law several months later, he fittingly gave one of the pens to John Lewis. The Voting Rights Act has become the most successful piece of civil rights legislation in this Nation's history. It has worked to protect the Constitution's guarantees against racial discrimination in voting for nearly five decades.…”