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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.

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
Book
Luther
Life
King
Kings
Changed
Story
Half
Read
Montgomery
Stories
Martin

More quotes by 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.
John Lewis
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I believe that teachers - whether in elementary schools, at the secondary level, or at colleges and universities - every teacher deserves the Nobel Peace Prize just for maintaining order in our schools!
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.
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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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But you have to have hope. You have to be optimistic in order to continue to move forward.
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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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.
John Lewis
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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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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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When people tell me nothing has changed, I say come walk in my shoes and I will show you change.
John Lewis
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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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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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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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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 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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Donald Trump has made it clear that certainly over the last few years that President [Barack] Obama was born in Hawaii.
John Lewis
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We built a coalition of conscience, and that we can do it again, and we can go forward, and help redeem the soul of America.
John Lewis
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My mother and father and many of my relatives had been sharecroppers.
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[Donald Trump] is not going to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
John Lewis
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We never gave up. We didn't get lost in a sea of despair. We kept the faith. We kept pushing and pulling. We kept marching. And we made some progress.
John Lewis