When I was growing up in rural Alabama, as a young child, about 50 miles from Montgomery, and we would visit the little town of Troy, or visit Montgomery or Tuskegee, I would see the signs that said, "WHITE MEN - COLORED MEN," "WHITE WOMEN - COLORED WOMEN."And I would come home and say to my mother and father and my grandparents, "Why?" "Why this?" "Why that?" And they would just tell me, "That's just the way it is! Don't get in the way. Don't cause trouble."

I believe it is my obligation to tell the story of the civil rights movement to the next generation.

There are hundreds and thousands of young Americans who cannot or will not receive an education, because in order to get an education, you have to spend money. Students come out of college and universities with unbelievable debt. It's not right, it's not fair, and it's not just, in a society such as ours. And those dollars are not going to the teachers.

I remember being at the church a few hours after the church was bombed in Birmingham, the 16th Street Baptist Church. It was very hard and very difficult to stand on that corner across the street from the church. Or to go Mississippi and search for the three civil rights workers who came up missing. There is a lot of trauma.

Right now what my job is, and I think the job of Democrats and Republicans, is to protect the middle class and working families of this country from some devastating ideas that [Donald] Trump has proposed.

The vast majority of the American people agree with me and many others. You don't simply repeal the Affordable Care Act without a replacement. Republicans have had six years to come up with a replacement. They got nothing.

The government, both state and federal, has a duty to be reasonable and accommodating.