John Lewis Quotes

Donald Trump has made it clear that certainly over the last few years that President [Barack] Obama was born in Hawaii.

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."

We have so many issues today that we need to confront. Comprehensive immigration reform. We have to solve the issue of poverty, the issue of hunger, the issue of war - spending billions of dollars to kill rather than to build. We have to deal with the fact that all of our children should be receiving the best possible education.

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.

The events in Prague, together with the Berlin blockade, convinced the European recipients of American economic assistance that they needed military protection as well: that led them to request the creation of a North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which committed the United States for the first time ever to the peacetime defense of Western Europe.

I heard Dr. King speaking on the radio, and it seemed like he was saying, "John Robert Lewis, you too can make a contribution. You can get involved!"

I think the administration can do a lot of good by telling folks that are on their side of the aisle, look, we may have lost the election on the Democrat side, but it's time to come together.

It's going to be very difficult. I don't see the president-elect [Donald Trump] as a legitimate president.

We may not have chosen the time, but the time has chosen us.

[Donald Trump's inauguration] will be the first one that I miss since I've been in Congress. You cannot be at home with something that you feel that is wrong, is not right.

['March'] is a path you must take if you want to move from one point to another point. If you want to make it down this very long and troublesome road, follow this path. Follow this message. Follow this map. And you will get there some day.

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 that [James] Comey acted in an outrageous way during the [presidential ] campaign [in 2016].

We built a coalition of conscience, and that we can do it again, and we can go forward, and help redeem the soul of America.

We live in a country where we're supposed to have freedom of the press and religious freedom, but I think to some degree, there's a sense of fear in America today, that if you say the wrong thing, what some people will consider what is wrong, if you step out of line, if you dissent, whether you be an entertainer, that somehow and some way this government or the forces to be will come down on you.

I thought I was going to die a few times. On the Freedom Ride in the year 1961, when I was beaten at the Greyhound bus station in Montgomery, I thought I was going to die. On March 7th, 1965, when I was hit in the head with a night stick by a State Trooper at the foot of the Edmund Pettus Bridge, I thought I was going to die. I thought I saw death, but nothing can make me question the philosophy of nonviolence.

Nobody thinks that Obamacare is perfect. It has its problems.

Some people know Rosa Parks, they know Daisy Bates in Arkansas, but every... Ruby Doris Smith, Diane Nash, countless individuals.

You cannot give up - you have to be persistent and keep pushing, and press on.

I happen to believe that this election year [2016] is...one of the most important elections that we're going to face in a very long time. I know we hear from time to time that every election is important. This one is very, very important.

It is our hope that when people read "March" - Book One, Book Two, and Book Three - that they will understand that another generation of people, especially young people, were deeply inspired by the work of Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr. and many others.

The advent of the civil rights movement during the 50s and 60s made it very plain crystal clear to me that we had an obligation to do what we could to make real the Constitution of the United States of America.

I would say to a young person: continue to study. Study what is taking place in your community, in your neighborhood, maybe at your school.

We never gave up. We didn't get lost in a sea of despair. We kept the faith. We kept pushing and pulling. We kept marching. And we made some progress.

We have had a great relationship with the White House.We just had every cabinet person designee of ours meet with the cabinet members of the [Barack] Obama administration on Friday. I've met numerous times with Denis McDonough, they've been nothing but helpful.

I say to people today, 'You must be prepared if you believe in something. If you believe in something, you have to go for it. As individuals, we may not live to see the end.

But you have to have hope. You have to be optimistic in order to continue to move forward.

I was so inspired by Dr. King that in 1956 with my brothers and sisters and first cousins, I was only 16 years old, we went down to the public library trying to check out some books and we were told by the librarian that the library was for whites only and not for colors! It was a public library! I never went back to that public library until July 5th, 1998, by this time I'm in the Congress, for a book signing of my book "Walking with the Wind"

For a person [like John Lewis] that is a champion of voter rights to question whether or not Donald Trump legitimately won an election or not is an incredible position to take five days before an inauguration.

In the past the great majority of minority voters, in Ohio and other places that means African American voters, cast a large percentage of their votes during the early voting process.

You cannot be afraid to speak up and speak out for what you believe. You have to have courage, raw courage.

Every American has got to recognize, we are the only major country on Earth not to guarantee health care to all people. We pay by far the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs because the pharmacy, the pharmaceutical industry is out of control ripping us off.

It is interesting that [James Comey] is not doing investigations about the possible - possible ties between [Donald] Trump's campaign and the Russians.

I heard of Martin Luther King Jr. when I was 15 years old. I heard of Rosa Parks. And I met Dr. King in 1958 at the age of 18. I met Rosa Parks ... But to pick up a fun comic book - some people used to call them "funny books" - to pick this little book up, it sold for 10 cents, 12 pages or 14 pages? 14 pages I digested. And it inspired me. And I said to myself, "If the people of Montgomery can do this, maybe I can do something. Maybe I can make a contribution."

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

John Lewis stood up and said in an interview that Donald Trump was not a legitimate president. It's insanity.

[Donald Trump] is not going to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

This book [March], in my estimation, is a road map. It is a change agent. It is saying to people, "This is a way".

People should organize people to just turn up and participate in the democratic process. Knock on doors. They may not be old enough to register to vote, but they can urge their teachers, their parents, their grandparents, their mothers, their fathers, and others to get out and vote.

If we must grind up human flesh and bones in the industrial machine that we call modern America, then, before God, I assert that those who consume the coal and you and I who benefit from that service, because we live in comfort, we owe protection to those men first and we owe security for their families if they die.

I think all three of those men [James Mattis, Mike Pompeo and Rex Tillerson] that you just mentioned, depending on what deal was struck with Russia, depending on what terms the deal would have and what incremental steps we would have to take and measurements that we would have to take with potentially Russia in a deal, some of those positions could change, and some of President-elect Donald Trump's positions could change depending on what deal could be struck.

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.'

When I was a student, I studied philosophy and religion. I talked about being patient. Some people say I was too hopeful, too optimistic, but you have to be optimistic just in keeping with the philosophy of non-violence.

This man [ Donald Trump] won in an electoral landslide.

I think Donald Trump is dividing the American people. He is not good for America. It's not good for our standing in the rest of the world. To divide people based on race, a color, a religion, a sexual orientation, it's just ... it's just wrong.

I think it is an imperfect arms control agreement. It's not a friendship treaty. But when America gives her word, we have to live up to it and work with our allies.

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

Don`t give up! Don`t give in! Keep the faith! And keep your eyes on the prize!