"I want to say this about my state: When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years, either."-- Senate Republican leader Trent Lott.
[Lott's spokesman] declined to explain what Lott meant when he said the country would not have had "all these problems" if the rest of the nation had followed Mississippi's lead and elected Thurmond in 1948.

Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., a leader of the civil rights movement in the 1960s, said, "Is Lott saying the country should have voted to continue segregation, for segregated schools, 'white' and 'colored' rest rooms?.... That is what Strom Thurmond stood for in 1948."