Skip to main content

Payne, Jr. Statement on the Passing of Amelia Boynton Robinson

August 27, 2015

Newark, N.J.Congressman Donald M. Payne, Jr. (NJ-10) released the following statement on the passing of 104-year-old civil rights icon Amelia Boynton Robinson:

“Mrs. Amelia Boynton Robinson embodied the optimism, determination, and courage that are at the heart of the American spirit. A leader of our nation’s Civil Rights Movement, including the 1965 Bloody Sunday march, Mrs. Boynton Robinson fought courageously to ensure that every American citizen had the right to vote. Her drive to secure universal voting rights was so profound that she risked her own life in marching across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama fifty years ago. She was a selfless individual who fought against discrimination and injustice, advanced the cause of equality, and carried our nation further down the path of progress. I offer my deepest condolences to her loved ones.”