[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 192 (Tuesday, December 5, 1995)]
[House]
[Page H13940]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         FORTY YEARS AGO TODAY

  (Mr. LEWIS of Georgia asked and was given permission to address the 
House for 1 minute.)
  Mr. LEWIS of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, 40 years ago today, December 5, 
1955, the Montgomery bus boycott began after Rosa Parks refused to give 
up her seat and move to the back of the bus. It marked the beginning of 
a long and difficult struggle toward equal rights and civil rights in 
this Nation.
  Forty years later, those signs that I saw growing up in the rural 
south, those signs that said colored men, white men, colored women, 
white women, colored waiting, white waiting, are gone.
  We have witnessed what I like to call a nonviolent revolution in 
America. It is a time and a period that we will never go back to, but 
we must never forget.
  On the occasion of this important anniversary, I want to pay tribute 
to the leaders of that struggle, to Rosa Parks and to my late great 
mentor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
  We have come a long way toward achieving what Dr. King called the 
``beloved community'', but we still have a long way to go. Let us, on 
this anniversary, rededicate ourselves to building a truly inter-racial 
democracy in America. For in truth, we are one nation, one people, one 
house, the American House.

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