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.

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

We will stand up for what is right, for what is fair and what is just. Health care is a right and not a privilege.

I think all Americans should be hopeful, and try to be optimistic.

Nonviolence is one of those immutable principles that we cannot and must not deviate from.

It is my hope that people today will see that, in another time, in another period, when we saw the need for people to speak up, to organize, to mobilize, and to do something about injustice, we came together.

I've said it in the past and I'll say it again today: the vote is precious; it's almost sacred.