Civil rights titan Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) said in an interview published Tuesday that he sees “the scars and stains of racism” in remarks made by former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) about President Obama.
Last week, Giuliani told a crowd in Manhattan that he believes Obama “doesn’t love America.” He later refused to back away from the comments, even defending them by saying they weren’t racist because the President’s mother was white.
In the interview published on Tuesday, USA Today asked the congressman whether he thought Giuliani’s comments were “driven by race.”
“It’s strange: Ever since he has been President, people have been trying to take something from him — that he’s not American, that he wasn’t born here,” Lewis responded.
“But we must keep in mind that the scars and stains of racism are still deeply embedded in American society,” he added. “We have a distance to go.”
Watch below, via USA Today. (The exchange about Giuliani starts at 4:47.)
h/t Mediaite
