John Lewis Quotes

When I was 15 years old and in the tenth grade, I heard of Martin Luther King, Jr. Three years later, when I was 18, I met Dr. King and we became friends. Two years after that I became very involved in the civil rights movement. I was in college at that time. As I got more and more involved, I saw politics as a means of bringing about change.

I hope that the opening of the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial will be a life-altering experience that inspires every American to rededicate themselves to the fulfillment of Dr. King's dream.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is one of my personal heroes.

Reading the Martin Luther King story, that little comic book, set me on the path that I'm on today.

In 1999, I was in St. Louis with Martin Luther King III as we led protests against the state's failure to hire minority contractors for highway construction projects. We went at dawn on a summer day with over a thousand people and performed acts of civil disobedience.

I was born after the Civil Rights Movement. I never saw Martin Luther King alive.

The first African-American leader was Dr. Martin Luther King.

I grew up in the 1960s in Memphis, and my father was a member of the American Civil Liberties Union. I was born three years before Martin Luther King was killed, and I think that history of civil action was something that I had in my blood.

My all-time heroes are Thurgood Marshall and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., two men who had to really work to achieve what they did. And I had the privilege of meeting them both.

I was a child when the March on Washington led by Martin Luther King occurred, and I wanted to hear what was going on. I wanted to be a part of it. I wanted to contribute in the best way I possibly could.

Martin Luther King, Jr., would have been the last person to have wanted his iconization and his heroism. He was an enormously guilt-laden man. He was drenched in a sense of shame about his being featured as the preeminent leader of African-American culture and the civil rights movement.

I marched back then - I was in a civil-rights musical, Fly Blackbird, and we met Martin Luther King.

Ray Charles' revolutionary approach to music was also reflected in his politics and his deep and abiding commitment to Martin Luther King and the plight of African-Americans. Ray Charles may not have been on the front lines, but he put his money where his mouth was.

These young people have to know that Dr. King and others made it possible for them to do their Hip Hopping.

There never was a moment of American history more honorable or more inspiring than the pilgrimage of clergymen and laymen of every race and faith pouring into Selma to face danger at the side of its embattled Negroes.

Martin Luther King does the cause of Civil Rights a disservice by linking it with the Vietnam issue.

Thank God we have the example of Martin Luther King, Jr. People need role models. They need to see examples of people in peoples' lives, and that's why it's so important not just to commemorate his life, but to study and try to live by the principles of that life.

I have a lot of respect for Martin Luther King. I think he was one of the greatest orators that the country ever produced.

I think if people really read Martin Luther King, Jr., then they would begin to understand what he really represented.

My black hero is and always will be Martin Luther King, not just because of the strength of his oratory but because his vision was very much the reality that I'd come to take for granted.

I don't remember when I didn't know about Martin Luther King.

I grew up reading Martin Luther King and Malcolm X.

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 want to play Martin Luther King. That is absolutely a role and a character who is important to the landscape of the world that I really want to play.

As a civil rights leader, Mrs. King's vision of racial peace and nonviolent social change was a fortifying staple in advancing the civil rights movement.