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

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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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This man [ Donald Trump] won in an electoral landslide.
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I think putting the United States down across the world is not something that a responsible person does.
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We have so many issues today that we need to confront. Comprehensive immigration reform. We have to solve the issue of poverty, the issue of hunger, the issue of war - spending billions of dollars to kill rather than to build. We have to deal with the fact that all of our children should be receiving the best possible education.
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John Lewis stood up and said in an interview that Donald Trump was not a legitimate president. It's insanity.
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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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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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We all remember that [Donald] Trump was one of the leaders of the so-called birther movement trying to delegitimize the presidency of our first African-American president Barack Obama, which is an outrage.
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I say to people today, 'You must be prepared if you believe in something. If you believe in something, you have to go for it. As individuals, we may not live to see the end.
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[Donald Trump] is not going to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
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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.
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Be prepared to organize nonviolent workshops - a teach-in around what is happening in America today. Organize your teachers and schoolmates, and be prepared to engage in some action.
John Lewis
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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.
John Lewis
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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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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 think all Americans should be hopeful, and try to be optimistic.
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The events in Prague, together with the Berlin blockade, convinced the European recipients of American economic assistance that they needed military protection as well: that led them to request the creation of a North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which committed the United States for the first time ever to the peacetime defense of Western Europe.
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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.
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I think, in fact, I think President [Barack] Obama could step up.
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Some people know Rosa Parks, they know Daisy Bates in Arkansas, but every... Ruby Doris Smith, Diane Nash, countless individuals.
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