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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.

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
Extraordinary
Average
Grew
Poor
Alabama
Rural
Gifts

More quotes by John Lewis

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Right now what my job is, and I think the job of Democrats and Republicans, is to protect the middle class and working families of this country from some devastating ideas that [Donald] Trump has proposed.
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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I think putting the United States down across the world is not something that a responsible person does.
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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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.
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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But you have to have hope. You have to be optimistic in order to continue to move forward.
John Lewis
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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.
John Lewis
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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.
John Lewis
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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.
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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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.
John Lewis
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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.
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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The reward for playing jazz is playing jazz.
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 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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I think all Americans should be hopeful, and try to be optimistic.
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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We may not have chosen the time, but the time has chosen us.
John Lewis