The repeal of racist language in the Constitution of Alabama was and still is a necessary step in the state's ability to progress.

This sweet, blessed, God-inspired place called America is a champion that has absorbed some blows. But while we bend, we don't break. This is no dark hour; this is the dawn before we remember who we are.

I think the most overused words in our vocabulary in the South are black and white.

Sure, there's a chunk of African-Americans out there who associate the Republican Party with racism, frankly particularly in the Deep South. It's an unfair perception, but it exists. Over a period time, that perception will die away if Republicans are focusing on issues that happen to impact African-Americans.

Historyis nothing other than a collection of the lives of people, some of them great, some of them ordinarynothing other than a collection of what people have done in challenging circumstances and how they have risen to those circumstances.

Well, one of the things a lot of Americans don't know, when Mitt Romney is nominated a few days from now, he will be the most experienced executive to be nominated for the presidency since Dwight Eisenhower in 1952, who had run a university and had run the allied war effort. That's actually a big deal.

I know 100 percent what it's like to have people tell you that you can't hold an office because of your color, and to have people vote based on that belief.