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Scalise Reflects on the Historic Legacy of Rep. John Lewis

July 20, 2020

WASHINGTON, D.C.—House Republican Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) joined Fox News Channel's Fox & Friends to reflect on the historic legacy of the great Representative John Lewis. Scalise remembered John Lewis not only as a friend, but as a legend of the civil rights movement who never stopped fighting for equality and justice for all, even in his final days.

Whip Scalise also discussed the importance of safely reopening our schools this fall on behalf of students across the country who are counting on their leaders to develop a solution.

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On the historic legacy of John Lewis:

"What a loss and what a giant. When John Lewis would get up to speak, he wasn't somebody who would always go speak, but when he did everybody would stop just because you knew the magnitude of his voice and the legacy that he carried along with his voice. The things that he did in a non-violent way to seek out justice and racial equality, and he lived by those words. He was somebody I was honored to serve with, as you served with him as well. And at the time you served with him, you knew you were serving amongst someone who was a legend, who was a giant, who you would tell your kids and grandkids about."

[…]

"I was talking to my colleague Cedric Richmond last night and, you know, Cedric is from that next generation and just, we all looked up to John Lewis. And John would pass on his history of what he not only learned, but the pioneering spirit. He really helped pave the way, along with Martin Luther King Jr., for the civil rights movement. And it was his blood, his sweat, that that helped earn it. He would bring Members of Congress to Selma, Alabama to go across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. He had invited me and it was one of the great honors during my whole tenure in Congress to be able to walk arm and arm with him across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, and he talked about that day, Bloody Sunday, and he would point to the buildings and he said, ‘That's where we met and here's where, you know, our SNCC, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, would have their meetings.' And then, of course, you approach the bridge and you could just feel the sense of what you were about to encounter. And what John Lewis went through that day where he was just brutally beaten, and yet still marched on and inspired a nation to seek more justice and equality, and really led to the passing of the Civil Rights Act."


On safely reopening our schools:

"President Trump has been leading the way to reopen schools. In fact, I was with Vice President Pence Tuesday in Baton Rouge when we had a roundtable meeting with the Vice President's whole Coronavirus task force, including Dr. Birx, as well as the heads of the LSU system and the Southern University System talking about how to reopen schools safely. And of course, LSU and Southern, all of our higher education institutions will be reopening with students in the classroom next month. Our K-12 systems are all working to do the exact same thing. I wish Joe Biden would be more focused on how to do it, not whether or not to do it. Because one of the things you've got to look at, the American Academy of Pediatrics just came out with strong guidelines of how to reopen safely – but in that they talk about the damage that was done to students by not being able to be in school those last few months of the last school year and what damage it would do to students not going back to school safely.

"Again, there's no trade-off of safety. It's just let's establish these protocols and then let's go get it done. We put a man on the moon, we can absolutely reopen our schools and we owe it to those kids. Over 50 million kids are counting on us not to come up with excuses why not to do it, the virus is out there, but we also know a lot of good things about how to do it safely. Again, when people like Dr. Birx say, ‘Yes, you can do it, you have to do it.' We need to go and focus all of our energies on getting our schools open for our kids so that they're not denied that opportunity."