You have to go with your gut sometimes, and how you feel.
I wanted young people to know that I was just a typical child.
There may be some difficulties, some interruptions, but as a nation and as a people, we are going to build a truly multiracial, democratic society that maybe can emerge as a model for the rest of the world.
Sometimes I feel like crying, tears of happiness, tears of joy, to see the distance we’ve come and the progress we’ve made.
Sometimes I hear people saying, ‘Nothing has changed.’ Come and walk in my shoes.
Some of us gave a little blood for the right to participate in the democratic process.
People come up to me in airports, they walk into the office, and they say, ‘I’m going to cry; I’m going to pass out.’ And I say, ‘Please don’t pass out; I’m not a doctor.’
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.’
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.’
We need someone who is going to stand up, speak up, and speak out for the people who need help, for the people who have been discriminated against.
We should be creative, and we should accommodate the needs of every community to open up the democratic process. We should make it easy and accessible for every citizen to participate.
MLK, Jr. taught me how to say no to segregation, and I can hear him saying now… when you straighten up your back, no man can ride you. He said stand up straight and say no to racial discrimination.
I studied the philosophy and the discipline of non-violence in Nashville as a student. And I staged a sitting-in in the fall of 1959 and got arrested the first time in February 1960.
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