A top civil-rights advocate in Congress says that there are still “scars and stains of racism” that are “deeply embedded in American society.”
Rep. John Lewis, a man who grew up in the segregated American South and marched alongside Dr. Martin Luther King in the country’s great civil rights struggles, says that there are still a lot of people that “cannot get comfortable with the idea of an African American as president of the United States of America,” adding that he didn’t witness “this type of hostility during the height of the Civil Rights Movement.”
His comments come on the heels of the ground-breaking ceremony for the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, a project that was approved by Congress in 2003 and that will be tasked with chronicling over 200 years of Black American history.
“It’s been a long struggle, down a very long road, but I feel more than lucky… just to play a little role in helping to get us to this point,” he said.
The museum will take the bad with the good – while displaying a “painful set of slave shackles made for a child,” it will also display Louis Armstrong’s trumpet or Chuck Berry’s red Cadillac. For the Museum’s director, Lonnie Bunch, it “is not a museum about black history for black people,” but rather, it is “the quintessential American story and we want everybody to revel in it,” he said.
Congressman Lewis lamented the current political battles being fought by one of his old Congressional colleagues Rick Santorum. Santorum, who was one of the co-sponsors of the legislation to establish the museum, has changed according to Lewis.
“I just don’t think that is the man that I knew when he served in the House.”
He added that, “I never, ever saw him take the type of position that he’s taken… on social issues, on the issues of race, taking care of people that have been left out and left behind. It is surprising.”
You can watch the entire PRESS Pass conversation above to hear more from Lewis and Bunch about the National Museum of African American History and Culture and how specifically it will handle the task of teaching about the nation’s first African American president: Barack Obama.
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Rep. Lewis seems to be surprised that people do not agree with the democrat party's ideology of taxing and spending to take care of people from cradle to grave or that the people don't agree with this president's belief in redistributing the wealth by taking money from one group and giving it to another group. Is he surprised that we don't like that the president took a bad situation and made it much worse. This president started right out of the gate being divisive when he and the democrat controlled congress pushed through the stimulus bill and the healthcare bill knowing it was the economy and jobs that needed their attention. This president and his administration knew this was their best chance for government run healthcare, hence the "don't let a good crisis go to waste". Many people, white and black, voted for obama because he was good at delivering a speech, had a good personality and a good looking family, nothing more nothing less. Others voted for him because they were fooled into believing he was this pragmatic person. Obama has continued the divide by playing favorites with the Unions and the Green Energy groups. His EPA regulations are killing the economy. The Financial bill was pushed through congress without doing one thing to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The stimulus money was thrown around without time to study who was getting it and most went to the states to pay government employees, medicaid and unemployment checks. The healthcare bill is full of unrealistic requirement and fees and taxes that businesses can't handle and that is on top of the fact that it is just as unsustainable as medicare, medicaid and social security. Last but not least is the fact that Rep. Lewis and the Democrats in Congress and the White House believe it is because Obama is Black. When they can't really defend their position, when they know they are losing the majority support, they have to push the race issue. Maybe, just maybe, they are the ones who can't accept whites.
Any person in America who actually believes that race is not an issue is simply delusional. The gentleman who mentioned that 'maybe, just maybe, they are the ones who can't accept whites." must be suffering from an altered reality. The main reason and I'll say the main reason for the HATE for the President is racial in nature. There's other reasons not to agree or like the President but the HATE for him is race based, that's plain and simple. Also its odd to me as a black man living in this country for the past 56 years to hear all this stuff about "I want my America back" as if it disappeared in the last three years that a black man has been President. I just want to ask - where did America go??? Do we need to bring back slavery, wholesale slaughter of Native Americans, no rights for women, the military draft? Like where did America go??? A lot of Americans are scared of a black man and that's ok, if you don't like him vote him out but stiffle the HATE, after all he is a great American and our finest President ever. Why is he the finest President ever you ask??? Because in my 57 years of living in America I've never seen such interest in the American political until a black man became President. So he's bringing all Americans together to work on these issues or complain about them or whatever but it seemed people didn't really care until this Presidency. Greatest President ever!!
Obama 2012
grey0066 is a typical paranoic's semi-literate, mis-informed, rambling reaction and ranting projection of blame! it is just plainly loaded with untruths, myths and all cobbled together with a tiny bit of fact-sprinkling to prove the overall massive falsehoods and myths that end with the ultimate charge of the racist paranoid that "...maybe, just maybe, they [Lewis and blacks] are the ones who can't accept whites." Our nation is full of these drowning men and women who will not accept a life line thrown by a black man. Sad, pitiful and negatively prophetic for our beleaguered nation.
bunt 5: Wow, reading your comments was difficult as you are so incorrect in your assumptions about America hating the President because of race. That is far from the truth. Obama is more radical than President Clinton and most Americans do not beleive in his Change. When we say we want America back, we are indicating we want less government control. The constitution set our nation in motion and it gave states certain rights to govern itself. As the years went by during the late 20th century, more democrats enacted laws at the federal level, such as no child left behind. We now know that NCLB hurts students not helps them. Further, besides the federal government over-reaching into personal lives, the federal government is too large. The FCC, FDA, Dept. of Education, Dept. of Agriculture, and so on. These agencies are too big and regulate too much. Just look at the USDA. Recently that agancy enacted a rule prohibiting whole milk in school cafeterias. First, the USDA (and the federal government) has no constitutional authority to enact regulation in school cafeterias. This is a state authority only. Second, it violates my right as a parent to chose what type of milk my child should, or should not, drink. Lastly, whole milk did not make America fat, rather our extremezone facination of fast food restaurants.
Republicans do not hate and we are not race-baiters. Rather, it is the reverse and frankly, politics is not all about race. So stop living in the past and stop your mistruths. You need to understand why republicans think the way they think, and only than, if you still disagree, so be it. But please do not make uninformed irrational comments without knowing the facts.
Awesome comments!
Aloha,
Santorum is taking a page out of George Wallaces play book.It is very unfortunate that you have some people in this society that would rather be lead straight to hell by a white man than be pointed in the direction of salvation by a black man. Then they would have to acknowledge that a black man could do something for them other than entertain them. When you see the movies To Kill a Mockingbird and In the Heat of the Night. Two scenes in those movies highlight what you are seeing among some whites today. The court room scene where the black man is asked why did he help the white girl and he said "because he felt sorry for her" caused almost the entire white audience to react in indignation. How dare he compare his humanity with that of a white woman.In the Heat of the Night-the scene where Poitier and Stieger are sitting in Stieger's living room and talking like two people and Poitier relates to Stieger- his immediate reaction is "I don't want your pity black boy". Is very telling.I have said it before on other sites-what we are witnessing is a new American Neo Nazi culture. You do not have to worship at the altar of Adolph Hitler to be a white supremacist.