Former President Barack Obama spoke at the late Rep. John Lewis’ (D-GA) memorial service on Thursday and highlighted the civil rights icon’s achievements. But he also noted the disparities and discrimination that minorities still face to this day.
“He knew that progress was fragile,” Obama said of Lewis. “That we have to be vigilant against the darker currents of this nation’s history and of our own history with the whirlpools of violence and hatred and despair that can always rise again.
“Bull Connor may be gone but today we witness with our own eyes police officers kneeling on the necks of black Americans,” Obama added. “George Wallace may be gone, but we can witness our federal government sending agents to use teargas and batons against peaceful demonstrators.”
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The audience broke out into applause.
“We may no longer have to guess the number of jelly beans in a jar in order to cast a ballot, but even as we sit here there are those in power who are doing their darndest to discourage people from voting by closing polling locations and targeting minorities and students with restricted I.D. laws and attacking our voting rights with surgical precision even undermining the postal service in the run-up to an election that’s going to be dependent on mail-in ballots so people don’t get sick,” he said.
That’s when the attendees at Lewis’ funeral gave the former president a standing ovation.
He noted that he knew it was a celebration of Lewis’ life, but that Lewis devoted his whole life fighting the attacks on democracy that Americans are suffering from today.
You can see Obama’s remarks in the video clip below:
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