If you are explaining, you are losing.

You take a poor black child. Give him a good education, tell him he's somebody, that God didn't create junk when he created him, and that black child will create his own affirmative action.

I don't know if anybody has moved up the ladder more quickly than I have.

Education is a bipartisan issue that concern all communities of color and should be first, last and always about the student learning.

In my wildest imagination, I never thought that the fifth of six children born to Helen and Buddy Watts - in a poor black neighborhood, in the poor rural community of Eufaula, Oklahoma - would someday be called Congressman.

Affirmative action is a little like the professional football draft. The NFL awards its No. 1 draft choices to the lowest-ranked team in the league. It doesn't do this out of compassion or guilt. It's done for mutual survival. They understand that a league can only be as strong as its weakest team.

I think you grow wherever God plants you. I hope I'm growing as a person of faith, as a Christian. That should be our number one objective this journey of life. That all starts with a personal intimate relationship with Christ and then being in prayer every single day about all of those things - being tenacious about it.