WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) delivered the following remarks Tuesday on the Senate floor regarding Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.:
“Yesterday, our nation honored one of the most consequential lives in American history.
“The America in which Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. labored for change was the same America in which I grew up.
“I was fortunate to be raised by parents who believed deeply in equal rights. But the scourge of segregation was not unfamiliar in the places I spent my formative years.
“As I’ve shared with some of our colleagues before, I was especially lucky to witness one of the most climactic moments of the civil rights movement as I was a Congressional intern here in Washington.
“I remember stepping outside of my office on August 28, 1963 and taking in the enormous crowds that had flocked to participate in the March on Washington. I remember looking down towards the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial beyond.
“I was too far away to hear Dr. King’s immortal words with my own ears. But I was proud to be a witness to the remarkable history he wrote that day, and throughout his extraordinary life.”
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