I Am Concerned That There Are Some Feelings In Some Quarters In Some Corners That, What Do People Of Color Want Now? We Elected Barack Obama As President. It's Over. People Talk About The Post-racial America. I See His Election Not As The End But As A Continuum. But We're Not There Yet. We Have Not Yet Created The Beloved Community That Dr. King Spoke Of. I See This As A Down Payment, A Major Down Payment On The Dream Of Martin Luther King, Jr. Even With This Election, We Still Have A Great Distance To Go Before We Lay Down The Bird In The Race.

I am concerned that there are some feelings in some quarters in some corners that, what do people of color want now? We elected Barack Obama as president. It's over. People talk about the post-racial America. I see his election not as the end but as a continuum. But we're not there yet. We have not yet created the beloved community that Dr. King spoke of. I see this as a down payment, a major down payment on the dream of Martin Luther King, Jr. Even with this election, we still have a great distance to go before we lay down the bird in the race.

John Lewis

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Today, I think more than ever before, we have to speak up and speak out to end discrimination based on sexual orientation. Dr. King used to say when people talked about blacks and whites falling in love and getting married, you know, at one time, in the state of Virginia, in my native state of Alabama, in Georgia and other parts of the South blacks and whites could not fall in love and get married. And Dr. King took a simple argument and said, races don't fall in love and get married. Individuals fall in love and get married.

John Lewis

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There have been efforts in recent years and as recently as this past election with it being a deliberate and systematic attempt to suppress the African-American vote. We had a case in some parts of Virginia where people tried to say to African-Americans, to would-be Democratic voters, you're not supposed to vote on Tuesday, November 4th. You're supposed to vote on Wednesday, November 5th. They were saying, in effect, that there's going to be such a big turnout, such a massive turnout, and you don't want to stand in these long line.

John Lewis

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The assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. made me very, very sad, and I morned and I cried like many of our citizens did. As a matter of fact, when I heard that he was, that he had been assassinated, I was with Robert Kennedy in Annapolis, campaigning with him. But somehow I said to myself, I'm not going to become bitter or hostile. I'm not going to give up or give in. I threw myself more into the campaign, and I made a commitment to myself that I would do what I can to continue the work of Dr. King, and later, after Bobbie Kennedy was assassinated two months later, to continue his effort to make our country a more just, a more fair country.

John Lewis