Civil Rights Legend and U.S. Congressman John Lewis Speaks at 16th Annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday Breakfast in Minneapolis.

MINNEAPOLIS -- U.S. Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), who was on the front lines of the struggle for equal rights during the 1960s, was today's keynote speaker at the 16th annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday Breakfast at the Minneapolis Convention Center. The event is sponsored each year by the United Negro College Fund and the General Mills Foundation.

"Dr. King inspired ordinary people to do extraordinary things -- to rise up and get in the way," said Rep. Lewis, speaking to an audience of 2,000 people. "Without Martin Luther King Jr., I don't know where our nation would be today."

Lewis has been called one of the big six leaders of the Civil Rights Movement. While a college student in the 1960s, Lewis became one of the founding members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and served as its president from 1963 to 1966. SNCC was responsible for organizing and leading sit-ins at segregated lunch counters and other peaceful protests in the South. Lewis was jailed and beaten for his participation in demonstrations. In addition, he was one of the planners of the March on Washington, and helped organize and lead the march from Selma to Montgomery that became known as "Bloody Sunday."

In Minneapolis today, Lewis spoke of a time when, as a child, he went with his brothers and sisters to a library in Troy, Ala. to get library

cards. They were told by the librarian that the library was for whites only. He returned to that library in 1998 for the signing of his book, "Walking with the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement," and was presented with a library card.

"Those signs that Martin Luther King saw dividing colored people and white people are gone. Now, we will only see them in a museum," said Lewis. "We are a better America."

The breakfast is a Twin Cities tradition that recognizes and celebrates Dr. King's life and legacy as well as the movement that changed civil rights laws for all Americans and inspired worldwide human rights reforms.

For more information on the breakfast and its history, visit www.mlkbreakfast.org.

The General Mills Foundation, celebrating more than 50 years of giving, is a champion for a stronger community. In fiscal 2005, General Mills awarded $78 million to communities across the country, representing more than five percent of company pre-tax profits that year. Of the total, the Foundation contributed more than $20 million in grants in the targeted areas of youth nutrition and fitness, social services, education and arts and culture. For its work in communities nationwide, General Mills received the Summit Award for Social Impact from the Leeds School of Business at the University of Colorado at Boulder. In 2005, Business Week ranked the company as one of the nation's "most generous cash givers" for corporate philanthropy.