Where was the party of Lincoln when called to live up to its founding principles as a party of civil rights and emancipation? Where were the white churches of America, North and South, when our brothers and sisters and fellow Americans were getting clubbed and beaten as they demonstrated for their rights?
Why were only four or five GOP members of Congress joining Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas to spend a weekend with the Faith and Politics Institute who organized this pilgrimage? It was hosted by two progressive young Alabama congressmen, Artur Davis and Spencer Bachus, the former a Democrat, the latter a Republican.
I joined this group because Lewis and his co-chair, Amo Houghton of upstate New York, asked me - plus I wanted to see the New South and the New Alabama. I also wanted to see the new Birmingham, where I had played my first game of professional football in an August 1957 exhibition game at a strictly segregated stadium where my Detroit Lion teammate, Hall of Famer John Henry Johnson, could not stay in our hotel, eat with our team or even enter Legion Field except through a "coloreds only" sign. Most of all, I wanted my party to get back to its roots as a party of freedom, social justice and equal opportunity for all.
I write this not to open old wounds but to keep in front of our nation's agenda the poverty and unemployment, education, jobs for all and access to capital, credit, property and homeownership which I believe are the cornerstone of a 21st century civil rights agenda for both political parties. The Democratic Party had a terrible history, which they overcame. The GOP had a great history from which it has all too often turned aside. History has given us a second chance, and we must not miss this opportunity to compete for every vote.
I urge Republican members of Congress and senators to take this pilgrimage with Lewis and Houghton and to see firsthand the progress that only occurred because of black Americans with the help of a few extraordinary and courageous white people who dared to demand justice, dignity and equality for all Americans without respect to the color of someone's skin.
Next time I hope to take my children and grandchildren because I want them to know there was a big price paid for their freedom. They need to know not only about the American Revolution but also about the civil rights revolution and about the men and women upon whose shoulders we all stand - the giants in a continuing struggle for human and civil rights for all. I want them to know that the opposite of love is not hatred but, as young Congressman Davis told us, it is indifference; and we must recognize that indifference to evil is evil.