The Early Show: African-American Icons Rep. John Lewis, Rev. Jesse Jackson, and Maya Angelou Reflect On His Victory
(CBS) Rep. John Lewis says the nation “witnessed a nonviolent revolution” when Barack Obama was elected president.
The longtime Democratic congressman from Georgia and civil rights leader — who was brutally beaten at the hands of segregationists in the Deep South in the early 1960s — described it to Early Show co-anchor Maggie Rodriguez Wednesday as “a revolution of values, a revolution of ideas. I’ve been saying over and over again — that the vote is the most nonviolent instrument that we have in a democratic society. And the American people used that vote … to make Barack Obama the next president of the United States of America.”
Asked if Obama is up to taking on the enormous problems facing the U.S. as he gets set to enter the Oval Office, Lewis responded, “This man, young, smart, gifted, leader, is prepared to lead the American people and be a leader among the men and women of the community of nations. He has a vision — he is the right man. He is so gifted. He is so decent. And he’s so calm and deliberate. I think he will be a great president. He personifies the best of a John F. Kennedy, a Robert Kennedy, a Martin Luther King Jr., a Lyndon Johnson.” Read the rest of this entry »
