Black men and women were not allowed to register to vote. My own mother, my own father, my grandfather and my uncles and aunts could not register to vote because each time they attempted to register to vote, they were told they could not pass the literacy test.

The assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. made me very, very sad, and I mourned and I cried like many of our citizens did.

We had teachers, we had high school principals, we had people teaching in colleges and university in Tuskegee, Alabama. But they were told they failed the so-called literacy test.

John Lewis Quotes