A Quote by Barack Obama
But something stirred across the country because of what happened in Selma, Alabama, because some folks were willing to march across a bridge. And so they [my parents] got together, Barack Obama Jr. was born. So don't tell me I don't have a claim on Selma, Alabama. Don't tell me I'm not coming home when I come to Selma, Alabama.
Related Quotes
With 'Selma,' I grew up in Alabama, 45 minutes away from Selma. I have gone to that commemorative march many times with my parents.
On March 7, 1965, some 600 civil rights activists marched in Selma, Alabama, demanding an end to racial discrimination. The demonstration was led by now-Rep. John Lewis and Hosea Williams, who worked with my father, Martin Luther King Jr.
In 1965, the attempted march from Selma to Montgomery on March 7 was planned to dramatize to the state of Alabama and to the nation that people of color wanted to register to vote.
My father marched in Selma. My father was there in Alabama. That's where I was born. My birth certificate says 'colored.' It does not say I'm African-American or black. So for me, those are real realities that are not subject to opinion.
Think of all the hate there is in Red China, then take a look around to Selma, Alabama.
My mother is from Compton, California, but my father is from Hayneville, Alabama, and that's less than 20 miles from Selma.
With all respect to Congressman Lewis, when I think about him, I always have that image in my mind when he was on the Selma Bridge. The truth of the matter is, with all that he has given towards the fight for civil rights - which we greatly appreciate - these are no longer the days of marching over the Selma Bridge.
I didn't have to learn Selma to make 'Selma.' I didn't have to research what kind of place this is. The people I love most in the world live in that part of the country.
I grew up really close to Alabama, about 10 minutes from the Alabama line. We'd make trips to Alabama, and I feel at home there.
The Daily Show is one of the lowest-rated shows in the state of Alabama, so we decided to reach across the aisle and do a collection of field pieces about Alabama - to increase awareness of the show there, but also to learn about the politics, culture, and religion in Alabama.
News footage came on the TV during dinner of bloody bodies coming back from battle in Vietnam, or the race riots in the South, people getting hosed in Selma, Alabama, or the Biafra war, where I got my name. In my household, it was explained and discussed with the children, as a way of educating us from when we first started grade school why racism and war were wrong, what this all really means.
In Selma, Alabama, in 1965, only 2.1 percent of blacks of voting age were registered to vote. The only place you could attempt to register was to go down to the courthouse. You had to pass a so-called literacy test. And they would tell people over and over again that they didn't or couldn't pass the literacy test.
Whenever I tell people in Berkeley, Calif., where I live, that I'm headed to the beach in Alabama, they are shocked. Most people outside of the Gulf Coast have no idea that Alabama has beaches - even though if you look at a map of Alabama, there is a part of it that looks as if it should belong to Florida.
President Lyndon Johnson's high spirits were marked as he circulated among the many guests whom he had invited to witness an event he confidently felt to be historic, the signing of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.... The bill that lay on the polished mahogany desk was born in violence in Selma, Alabama, where a stubborn sheriff... had stumbled against the future.
I don't understand it, how President Johnson can send troops to Vietnam and cannot send troops to Selma, Alabama, to protect people whose only desire is to register to vote.
After marching across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma as a young man, John Lewis went on to become a legendary leader for civil rights alongside other giants of the movement like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth.
Related Authors
Abraham Lincoln Quotes
American
President
Donald Trump Quotes
American
President
Dwight D. Eisenhower Quotes
American
President
Franklin D. Roosevelt Quotes
American
President
George W. Bush Quotes
American
President
George Washington Quotes
American
President
James Madison Quotes
American
President
Joe Biden Quotes
American
President
John F. Kennedy Quotes
American
President
Mike Pence Quotes
American
President
Ronald Reagan Quotes
American
President
Theodore Roosevelt Quotes
American
President
Thomas Jefferson Quotes
American
President
Vladimir Putin Quotes
Russian
President
William J. Clinton Quotes
American
President
Woodrow Wilson Quotes
American
President