Thomas M. Barrett: “I think all of us felt the same way, all of us who were on this weekend. It was probably one of the most, if not the…”

“I think all of us felt the same way, all of us who were on this weekend. It was probably one of the most, if not the most, amazing weekend I have spent in my 5 years in Congress. We all fashion ourselves as busy people, sometimes we are too busy to take the time to talk to each other, to get to know each other but, more importantly, we do not take the time to reflect and find out from our backgrounds what we can do to bring us together. For me this was just a weekend I will never forget my entire life. Going down to Alabama for the first time in my life, traveling with the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Hilliard) through his district, he was a wonderful host, and with the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Lewis). Someone remarked the weekend was a lot like taking a history course taught by the professor who created the history, because John Lewis was such an integral part of this. For me to go home and tell my family and my friends what an amazing weekend it was really is going to have an impact. For me there were several things that really jumped out. Probably the part that I will remember the most is when we went to visit former Governor George Wallace. The number of us, I think, northern Democrats when we went into the room, he is not a person that in my neck of the woods was a person that I grew up respecting in all honesty.”