Hoyer Delivers Keynote Address at Faith and Politics Institute's "Redeeming the Souls of Our Nation" Dinner

July 17, 2026 Press Release WASHINGTON, DC – This week, Congressman Steny H. Hoyer (MD-05) delivered the keynote address at The Faith and Politics Institute's "Redeeming the Souls of Our Nation" Dinner ahead of the sixth anniversary of the passing of Congressman John R. Lewis (GA-05) on Friday, July 17th, 2026. Below are his remarks as prepared for delivery: "Thank you, Shana. I want to congratulate you and your eleven colleagues from Cohort Five on completing your fellowship. Each of you has taken it upon yourself to carry the banner for which John Lewis stood and taught throughout his life. He would be so proud of this group – and excited to meet Cohort Six, which is beginning its fellowship year. "John Lewis was more than my friend. He was an inspiration, my colleague, and – most importantly – my brother. When John came to Congress in 1987, I sought him out. I had been serving in the House for six years, but John was already a hero of mine when he first stepped onto the Floor as a freshman. He and I both had our formative political experiences during the Civil Rights Movement. John, of course, was a student leader of that movement. He marched, he sat in, he was jailed and beaten. He organized Freedom Rides. When he 'walked with the wind' across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, in 1965, John became an icon at just twenty-five years old. The following year, I was a young lawyer and Congressional staffer running for State Senate in Maryland. I ran on a desegregation and fair-housing platform. I won because I went door to door in the African American community and worked to register and turn out the Black vote in a district that George Wallace had carried in 1964 and where many Black voters told me no one had ever asked them to cast a vote before, let alone some skinny white kid who had just finished law school. After I was elected, one of the first votes I cast in 1967 was to repeal Maryland’s 300-year-old law banning interracial marriage. I was twenty-seven. Not much older than you are now. Never underestimate the impact young people can have on our democracy, on our communities, and on shaping the direction of this country. We saw it with great Americans like Alexander Hamilton, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., John F. Kennedy, and Dolores Huerta – and we see that same determination today in young people like you. "Many of you today remember John in his older years. But for those of us who knew him over the decades, John always carried the same youthful spirit that first led him organize fellow students in the 1960’s. In 1960, he sat in against segregation in Nashville. In 2016, he sat in against gun violence on the Floor of the House of Representatives. In 1963, he spoke before Dr. King at the March on Washington and challenged this nation to do something about police violence. In 2020, in his final weeks, he called on us not to give up in seeking justice after the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. By 1966, John had already been arrested forty times for protesting segregation and voter suppression. In the twenty-first century, he was arrested for protesting against genocide in Darfur and for the rights of immigrants. Dr. King called him 'the boy from Troy.'  Even until his last days, John held on to the restlessness and fearlessness of a young man. He dared to dream and never let it go. I have referred to him as 'Saint John.' The most Christ-like individual I have met over the course of my life – a man who lived his faith, suffered for what he believed to be right, and challenged all of us to take risks for change. The Beloved Community of which he spoke often was as much a hopeful vision as it was sacred challenge. It calls on us to imagine an America where change stems from nonviolence, where progress springs from kindness, and where unity comes from mutual respect. "For the young people here tonight – the Fellows and the Scholars – who are emerging leaders in the movement for equality, justice, and opportunity, I urge you to do what John did: never stop dreaming of what could be and never stop fighting to make it so. As John demonstrated, the passion and determination you have now need never diminish as the years progress. We may grow older and grayer but hope and faith and conviction must never age. When I walked beside John over the bridge in Selma, year after year at the annual pilgrimage, I could see on his face something timeless, something steady. It was, I now understand, the face of a twenty-five-year-old who dreamed, who yearned, who believed in what others said was impossible. Now, I look upon your faces. I see the same idealism and impatience. Embrace it. Harness it. Never let it go. "In his final message to his fellow Americans, published after he died, John described it as 'the highest calling of your heart.' This calling gives you purpose. Surely, it will be the instrument of a better future for us all. One of John’s heroes was Senator Robert Kennedy. Kennedy, speaking to students in Cape Town, South Africa, in 1966, said: 'Everyone here will ultimately be judged – will ultimately judge himself – on the effort he has contributed to building a new world society and the extent to which his ideals and goals have shaped that effort.' By that standard, John Robert Lewis’s actions and life were testament to his fidelity to his ideals and goals. Dr. King, Gandhi, and Mandela – I’m sure – all said upon receiving John into their company: 'Well done, good and faithful servant.' Like two of the three servants in Jesus’s Parable of the Talents, John multiplied the message he had received, and the community was more beloved because of it. May God bless and keep the memory of my friend John Lewis. And may his legacy continue to be honored and exalted in your work."