ABC'S THE VIEW HONORED MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.

Rep. John Lewis On The View

The View honors Martin Luther King Jr. with Rep. John Lewis, Common, and Charlottesville's first black female mayor.

Singer-songwriter Jordin Sparks joins as guest co-host.

Rep. John Lewis talks skipping Trump's inauguration, Charlottesville, experience in civil rights movement.

On Charlottesville: "What happened there made me very sad — I cried. I don't wanna go back. I wanna go forward. I want to continue to be part of an effort to make America one."

"We all live in the same house! The American house, the world house. And we must learn to live together as brothers and sisters, as Dr. King would put it, or we will perish as fools."

 Lewis explains why he skipped inauguration: "I never felt that his election was legitimate."

Lewis says he disagreed with King's daughter's comment that MLK would have met with Trump: "I knew her father very, very well. Meeting him, working with him, and getting to know him — I think he would have taken the same position that I did."

Lewis says that Trump wouldn't have been elected had King been alive: "Dr. King would have been able to lead us to a different place and our country would have been different and the world community would have been different."

On his experience protesting: "We studied, we prepared ourselves," Lewis said. "So [if] someone spit on you, poured hot water, hot coffee, hot chocolate, call you everything but a child of God, just keep your cool and you hold your head high, you stand with dignity or you kneel with dignity and pride."

"You cannot become angry — you cannot become bitter or hostile," Lewis said. "Dr. King told us never to hate. Hate is too heavy a burden to bear."