Friend,

It has been an eventful week – at home in my district, across the country, and around the world.  A week ago today, I was voting on Super Tuesday, watching the shifting dynamics in races up and down the ballot, knowing the consequences could not be higher.  Over the week, we have seen increasing challenges to our public health and our economy.  As events continue to unfold, we are focused on the many challenges we face each day, and we are committed to facing them together.

For me, there could be no better opportunity to renew that commitment than the weekend I just spent in Alabama observing the 55th anniversary of the Selma-to-Montgomery march on Bloody Sunday in 1965.  As a student of history, I had studied the march and the civil rights movement.  I had read many books and done much research.  But this time, I had the incredible privilege of joining my colleague Congressman John Lewis and many other leaders of the civil rights movement, as well as many of my colleagues, on this Congressional pilgrimage with the theme “Hope in History and Faith in our Future.”

If anyone personifies hope and faith, it is the foot soldiers of the civil rights movement.  They believed in this country, its people, and its promise.  And they believed that by taking action – from sitting at lunch counters, to riding buses, to marching, to going to school – they could change the world.  And they did.  There is no greater testament to the powerful change that Americans can make with vision, with courage, and with commitment.

This visit took us to incredible places where our history was shaped with the very people who shaped it — a reminder that this history was not so long ago.  We were also reminded that we still have much work to do to honor their legacy, to realize their vision, and to move us closer to a more perfect union.

I know that you are as committed as I am to doing that work – learning from their courage, believing in what we can accomplish when we work together, and placing our faith in the promise of this country.  It is why I am so grateful to have your support and your partnership as we work each day to put our country back on the path to progress.

Together, we can do anything,