"Immediately I knew that was problematic [being paired on a television show with John Lewis]. Because the show starts with our bios, and it starts with, ‘John Lewis, hero of the civil rights movement stood on the Edmund Pettus Bridge. … He literally bled the southern soil red. And then it goes to me. ‘Cory Booker, riding his Big Wheel in affluent suburbia, falls off and skins his knee: He bled the New Jersey soil red.’ And so you are very aware if you were born after the civil rights movement, if you were born in my generation, that you stand on the shoulders of giants."
Cory Anthony Booker is an American politician and lawyer serving as a United States senator from New Jersey, a seat he has held since 2013. A member of the Democratic Party, Booker is the first African-American U.S. senator from New Jersey. He was the 38th mayor of Newark from 2006 to 2013, and served on the Municipal Council of Newark for the Central Ward from 1998 to 2002.
"I got a chance to witness firsthand what I think many people in America can relate to, is when you show up in a room qualified, when you show up in a room with extraordinary expertise and credentials, there are a lot of Americans who know that hurt, that you are still going to be treated in a way that does not respect to you fully"
"Sometimes you go in the pit before you go to the palace, right? You know? And that was the story of Saint Joseph ... Martin Luther King was slain, they wrote the words from Josephs brothers when they threw Joseph in the well ... "Behold, here cometh the dreamer. Let us slay him, and see what becomes of his dream". Now, King has fallen but his dream has not died, and we are the keepers of the dream. And so, do not give up hope, do not give up faith, alright?"
"We are brick city. We are like bricks themselves. We are strong. We are resilient. We are enduring."
"We make a grave mistake when we assume this spirit of connectedness is automatic or inevitable. It is not a birthright. A united country is an enduring struggle. It takes collective work and individual sacrifice. It is not enough to call on others or wait for a leader to emerge who will exalt our national values. I believe this is the question we face, as citizens of this nation: what will we do to affirm this most critical American virtue?"
"The reality is we have to make sure that we have a military that’s prepared, but right now, we have more military spending than the next 10, 11, 12 countries combined, and we’ve got to start realizing that we can secure and protect ourselves, but also be responsible in the way that we do that," Booker said. And it’s not unpatriotic to say that we’re spending too much money. In fact, to me, that’s the patriotic thing to say."
"We prove worthy of the privileges that we have not by paying anything back, but by paying it forward."