Memorializing the Honorable John Lewis

Floor Speech

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Mr. CASTEN of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, John Lewis was a legend. He was also just a man. I knew the legend, but I was only just getting to know the man. And I guess I just hope we remember both, because somehow the legend feels unattainable.

On our best days, none of us are half the man that John Lewis was every day. And the real inspiration, I think, is the man, because it was that proof of his life that showed us our potential: if only we can summon his decency and his courage and his conviction.

The legend was the guy whom I could never muster the courage to call anything but Mr. Lewis. And the man was the guy who always said, ``Just call me John.''

The legend was the orator at this podium, or that one, or the one down there. And the man was the guy who would sit there and pull me aside and say, ``How are you doing?''

But somehow, the legend and the man are one in the same, because it was a man who stood on that bridge, and it was a man who made all that ``good trouble,'' and it was a man who showed us that the amount of love we can spread into this world isn't constrained by our mortality, but by our ambition.

Thank you, Mr. Lewis. And while I never quite mustered up the courage to say this while you were alive, thank you, John.

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