When people treat corruption as a routine part of the process, you have something far worse than wrongdoing or moral failing. You have a political cancer that breeds cynicism about democratic government and infects all of society.
My parents taught me that racial prejudice is a sin, one that robs the world of great minds and talents.
My entire life has been devoted to breaking down barriers, to finding common ground.
To stand still is to regress.
Labels applied to people of any race are inherently offensive.
Election victories are a harvest. You plant the seed. For months or years, you water and tend them. In the election season, you reap the harvest.
I spent many years working for voting rights, but we still see sophisticated efforts, led by white officials, to disenfranchise black voters in local and national elections.
Politics is not a tea party. When it is time to act, you have to move fast and decisively.
Historically we have rejected extremism on the left and the right. Centrism is the right course for America.
You can't say the negro left the Republican party; the negro feels he was evicted from the Republican party.
America is the only country in the world that classifies as Negro any person who has one drop of African blood in his or her veins.
The member of Congress who forgets his constituents' needs usually serves only one term.
In elective politics, it's up or out. You go up the ladder, or you get out of the game.
I deplored a system that made it more profitable not to work than to work. I wanted to help change all that.
Once bitten, you seldom lose the political bug.
