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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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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
Make
Question
Told
Segregation
Trouble
Racial
Parent
Discrimination
Child
Noise
Young
Raised
Children
Beginning
Way
Parents

More quotes by 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 would say to a young person: continue to study. Study what is taking place in your community, in your neighborhood, maybe at your school.
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People should organize people to just turn up and participate in the democratic process. Knock on doors. They may not be old enough to register to vote, but they can urge their teachers, their parents, their grandparents, their mothers, their fathers, and others to get out and vote.
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The point is not where Barack Obama was born, the point is is that we've got congressmen on the Democratic side of the aisle that are questioning the legitimacy of President-elect [Donald] Trump who won in an electoral landslide.
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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 heard Dr. King speaking on the radio, and it seemed like he was saying, John Robert Lewis, you too can make a contribution. You can get involved!
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.
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I think all Americans should be hopeful, and try to be optimistic.
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I think [James Comey] should take a hard look at what he has done. And I think it would not be a bad thing for the American people if he did step down.
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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.
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I think right now, the focus has got to be on how we hold [Donald] Trump accountable.
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I would like to think that we have made much more progress, that we've come much further, to have someone like a Donald Trump to emerge as the nominee of a major political party.
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The reward for playing jazz is playing jazz.
John Lewis
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This man [ Donald Trump] won in an electoral landslide.
John Lewis
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The book Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story, I read it when I was about 17-and-a-half or 18. It changed my life.
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I don't have any extraordinary gifts. I'm just an average Joe who grew up very poor in rural Alabama.
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That's where the outrage should be, not old news, but the fact that we are preparing for the transfer of power. and we have been working with President [Barack] Obama, hand in glove, and I think that they - including the president - should step up and get his people in line and tell them to grow up and accept the fact that they lost the election.
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The last thing we want is a monolithic viewpoint where six people are standing before a president saying the same thing over and over again.
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Races don't fall in love, genders don't fall in love: Individuals fall in love. We all should be free to marry the person that we love.
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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