John Lewis

“You have to be optimistic in order to continue to move forward.”

“To make it hard, to make it difficult almost impossible for people to cast a vote is not in keeping with the democratic process.”

“We are one people; we are only family. And when we finally accept these truths, then we will be able to fulfill Dr. King's dream to build a beloved community, a nation, and a world at peace with itself.”

“Customs, traditions, laws should be flexible, within good reason, if that is what it takes to make our democracy work.”

“We need comprehensive immigration reform. Dr. King wouldn't be pleased at all to know that there are millions of people living in the shadow, living in fear in places like Georgia and Alabama.”

“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.”

“Obama is not an African American president, but a president of all Americans. It doesn't matter if you are black, white, Hispanic, he's the president of all races.”

“Never give up. Never give in. Never become hostile... Hate is too big a burden to bear.”

“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.”

“Without our faith, we wouldn't have been able to succeed. On many occasions, before we'd go out on a sit-in, before we went on the freedom ride, before we marched from Selma to Montgomery, we would sing a song or say a prayer. Without our faith, without the spirit and spiritual bearings and underpinning, we would not have been so successful.”

“Early on, I wrote a letter to the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. I was 17. I felt called, moved.”

“Comics, in a sense, the style, the images - it's almost like music. They say music is a universal language, but when the eyes behold something, a figure, somebody moving; it's real, and it cannot be denied.”

“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.”

“Too many of us still believe our differences define us.”

“We are tired of being beaten by policemen. We are tired of seeing our people locked up in jails over and over again. And then you holler, 'Be patient.' How long can we be patient?”

“I would say the country is a different country. It is a better country. The signs I saw when I was growing up are gone and they will not return. In many ways the walls of segregation have been torn down.”

“You cannot be at home with something that you feel that is wrong, is not right.”

“The March on Washington was a March for Jobs and Freedom. There are still too many people who are unemployed or underemployed in America - they're black, white, Latino, Native American and Asian American.”

“Dr. King was one of the most inspiring human beings I ever met. He was such a warm, compassionate, and loving human being.”

“We come to Selma to be renewed. We come to be inspired. We come to be reminded that we must do the work that justice and equality calls us to do.”