[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 90 (Wednesday, July 12, 2006)]
[House]
[Page H5054]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           VOTING RIGHTS ACT

  (Mr. LEWIS of Georgia asked and was given permission to address the 
House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. LEWIS of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, the right to vote is precious, 
almost sacred. During the 1960s, working to get a Voting Rights Act, 
many of us were arrested, jailed and beaten. I was arrested and jailed 
more than 40 times during the sixties. We stood in unmovable lines on 
the courthouse steps in Selma, Alabama. We were beaten with 
nightsticks, bull whips and trampled by horses trying to register to 
vote or to get others to register to vote.
  But many of my friends, many of my colleagues died. I will never 
forget Andy Goodman, James Chaney and Mickey Schwerner, who were 
beaten, shot and killed in Philadelphia, Mississippi. Jimmie Lee 
Jackson was killed in Alabama. Viola Liuzzo was killed on Highway 80 
between Selma and Montgomery.
  Because of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, we don't have to risk our 
lives anymore. We don't have to pass a so-called literacy test. On one 
occasion a man in Alabama was asked to count the number of bubbles in a 
bar of soap. On another occasion a man was asked to count the number of 
jelly beans in a jar. On one occasion there was a man in Tuskegee, 
Alabama who had a Ph.D. degree and he was told that he could not read 
or write well enough. He failed the so-called literacy test.
  The Voting Rights Act was good in 1965. It is still good today.

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