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The reward for playing jazz is playing jazz.

John Lewis

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John Lewis
Age: 80 †
Born: 1940
Born: February 21
Died: 2020
Died: July 17
Chairperson
Human Rights Activist
Politician
U.S. Representative
Troy
Alabama
John Robert Lewis
Reward
Rewards
Jazz
Musical
Playing
Music

More quotes by John Lewis

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Our struggle is a struggle to redeem the soul of America. It's not a struggle that lasts for a few days, a few weeks, a few months, or a few years. It is the struggle of a lifetime, more than one lifetime.
John Lewis
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The civil rights movement was based on faith. Many of us who were participants in this movement saw our involvement as an extension of our faith. We saw ourselves doing the work of the Almighty. Segregation and racial discrimination were not in keeping with our faith, so we had to do something.
John Lewis
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My parents told me in the very beginning as a young child when I raised the question about segregation and racial discrimination, they told me not to get in the way, not to get in trouble, not to make any noise.
John Lewis
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If we must grind up human flesh and bones in the industrial machine that we call modern America, then, before God, I assert that those who consume the coal and you and I who benefit from that service, because we live in comfort, we owe protection to those men first and we owe security for their families if they die.
John Lewis
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Today, all across this country there are going to be rallies led by Democrats and others to fight against the devastating impact of repeal of the Affordable Care Act. 20 million people thrown off of health insurance, prescription drug prices raising for seniors, privatization of Medicare: devastation. And we've got to fight back against that.
John Lewis
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To question the legitimacy of the next United States president, you know, and you're worried about a tweet that says, hey, why don't you get back to work instead of questioning my legitimacy? Too bad.
John Lewis
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You have to have the capacity and the ability to take what people did, and how they did it, and forgive them and move on.
John Lewis
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I've said it in the past and I'll say it again today: the vote is precious it's almost sacred.
John Lewis
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I remember being at the church a few hours after the church was bombed in Birmingham, the 16th Street Baptist Church. It was very hard and very difficult to stand on that corner across the street from the church. Or to go Mississippi and search for the three civil rights workers who came up missing. There is a lot of trauma.
John Lewis
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It is my hope that people today will see that, in another time, in another period, when we saw the need for people to speak up, to organize, to mobilize, and to do something about injustice, we came together.
John Lewis
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[Donald Trump] is not going to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
John Lewis
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This man [ Donald Trump] won in an electoral landslide.
John Lewis
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I believe it is my obligation to tell the story of the civil rights movement to the next generation.
John Lewis
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I truly believe that one day we will get there, we will arrive. And if we do it right in America, maybe, just maybe, we can serve as a model for the rest of the world.
John Lewis
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It is our hope that when people read March - Book One, Book Two, and Book Three - that they will understand that another generation of people, especially young people, were deeply inspired by the work of Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr. and many others.
John Lewis
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I think [Donald Trump] is going to be inaugurated this week. I have great concerns, and apparently Republicans do as well, and there's going to be an investigation about the role that Russian hacking played in getting him elected.
John Lewis
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President-elect [Donald] Trump won 30 of 50 states, more counties since Ronald Reagan.
John Lewis
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I think right now, the focus has got to be on how we hold [Donald] Trump accountable.
John Lewis
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We may not have chosen the time, but the time has chosen us.
John Lewis
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I think, in fact, I think President [Barack] Obama could step up.
John Lewis