If someone had told me in 1963 that one day I would be in Congress, I would have said, 'You're crazy. You don't know what you're talking about.'

People must understand that people were beaten, arrested, jailed, and some people were murdered, while attempting to register to vote, or to get others to register to vote.

I have fought too hard and for too long against discrimination based on race and color not to stand up against discrimination based on sexual orientation. I've heard the reasons for opposing civil marriage for same-sex couples. Cut through the distractions, and they stink of the same fear, hatred and intolerance I have known in racism and in bigotry.

When I was 15 years old in the tenth grade, I heard Martin Luther King, Jr. Three years later, when I was 18, I met Dr. King and we became friends. Two years after that I became very involved in the civil rights movement. I was in college at the time. As I got more and more involved, I saw politics as a means of bringing about change

I don't have any extraordinary gifts. I'm just an average Joe who grew up very poor in rural Alabama.

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.

Do I think Russians supported [Donald Trump]? Do I think they tried to get him elected? Do I think it worked against Clinton? I do. And that is something that has to be investigated.