Cori Bush Quotes

Tonight, Missouri's 1st District has decided that an incremental approach isn't going to work any longer. We decided that we the people have the answers, and we will lead from the front lines.

Many of us didn't choose to become activists. We were activated. We could not stand to sit on the sidelines while our people were brutalized so needlessly. At some point, we choose to accept police violence, or we don't. Where will you stand?

Everything I do begins with those who have the least, who’ve suffered the worst, and who have the greatest to offer. Why? Because I myself have lived paycheck to paycheck. I struggled for years under the burden of student debt. I’ve been evicted by landlords. I’ve worried about how I was going to put food on the table for my two kids. I’ve been underinsured and uninsured. And for every one of those stories that I can tell you about my life, I know there are thousands more in our community. And those are the stories that I am carrying with me and will uplift in the People’s House as your congresswoman. It is my job now to serve you – not just lead, not just demand, but serve you. This moment is brought to us by us – by our movement for social, racial and economic justice. Now, our movement is going to Congress. And we will meet the challenges of this moment as a movement: side by side, arm in arm, and with our fists in the air – ready to serve each other until every single one of us is free.

I was that person running for my life across a parking lot, running from an abuser. I remember hearing bullets whizz past my head and at that moment I wondered: “How do I make it out of this life?” I was uninsured. I’ve been that uninsured person, hoping my healthcare provider wouldn’t embarrass me by asking me if I had insurance. I wondered: “How will I bear it?” I was a single parent. I’ve been that single parent struggling paycheck to paycheck, sitting outside the payday loan office, wondering “how much more will I have to sacrifice?”... I’ve been that Covid patient gasping for breath, wondering, “How long will it be until I can breathe freely again?” I’m still that same person... We have been surviving and grinding and just scraping by for so long, and now this is our moment to finally, finally start living and growing and thriving. So, as the first Black woman, nurse, and single mother to have the honor to represent Missouri in the United States Congress, let me just say this. To the Black women. The Black girls. The nurses. The single mothers. The essential workers. This. Is. OUR. Moment.

It really bothers me that people will look at me and say, 'Oh, my gosh, your story is amazing and I really support you and look how far you've come. Look at all the adversity you've overcome. This is amazing! I love you.. And then when they hear somebody say something that they don't have full information on, then it's like, 'Oh, my gosh, she's being co-opted. Oh yeah, I knew it wasn't real.

I don't want anybody to have to feel hunger the way that I felt hunger. I don't want anybody else to have to live out of their vehicle with their babies. Well, I won't even go into all of that... But my son was a baby [and] my daughter was a baby when we were living out of a car. Something happens to you when you feel like you can't provide for your kids, when you're cold and there's nothing, there's no amount of blankets you can put on yourself to be warm when you're sleeping in a car. You can't keep the car running because you're running down the gas. You can't keep the lights on [or] people know that you're in a car. ... What we need to do is put money into mental health. Take money from [police], put it into education, put money into job training programs, to address substance use issues, right? Into our unhoused population. That's where that money needs to go... You give [police] this money, but then we don't give money to human services. Put it into our health department! Look what happened when COVID hit, again. The areas that are the most marginalized in our communities were the last ones to receive COVID testing and supplies. So that's what we're talking about. That also means you don't need money for tear gas. You don't need money for noise ammunition, and MRAPs and stockpiling SWAT gear.

I went to Cardinal Ritter (High School). Actually, that was the second school. My first semester of freshman year, I went to a predominantly white school. I was told that I was the number one ranked incoming freshman, and tested to that fact. [They] came to me and said, ‘Oh, you tested number one. We're going to have you retest because we don't believe that's your score. We think that you cheated.’ I think I was still 13 at the time. But I went back into this huge auditorium and retested and ended up scoring even higher. And so they said, ‘Okay, well we believe you now.’ But the way that I was treated when I entered the school, it was so bad I couldn't stay. And that's how I ended up at Cardinal Ritter.

Madam Speaker, St. Louis and I rise in support of the article of impeachment against Donald J. Trump. If we fail to remove a white supremacist president who incited a white supremacist insurrection, it’s communities like Missouri’s First District that suffer the most. The 117th Congress must understand that we have a mandate to legislate in defense of Black lives. The first step in that process is to root out white supremacy, starting with impeaching the white supremacist in chief. (Bush’s first House floor speech)

It's voting rights or it's the filibuster. It's LGBTQ+ rights or it's the filibuster. It's union rights or it's the filibuster. It's civil rights or it's the filibuster. It's our rights or it's the filibuster.The choice is easy.