WATCH: White Congressman Apologizes to Black Colleagues for Inadvertent Display of ‘Privilege’ During Capitol Attack

Democratic Minnesota Congressman Dean Phillips delivered a powerful apology on the House floor for a moment during the Capitol insurrection that made him realize the “privilege” he enjoyed in that moment, and that his Black colleagues did not.

On Thursday evening, following the vote to strip Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of her committee assignments, members of the House spent several hours delivering speeches about their experiences during the attack on the Capitol.

In one of many poignant moments, Rep. Phillips used part of his speech to make a chilling and emotional apology for his heat-of-the-moment suggestion that Democratic members move to the Republican side of the chamber to “blend in” and potentially be spared if the insurrectionists got in.

I’m not here this evening just to seek sympathy or to tell my story. Rather, to make a public apology.

For, recognizing that we were sitting ducks in this room as the chamber was about to be breached, I screamed to my colleagues to follow me, to follow me across the aisle to the Republican side of the chamber so that we could blend in.

So that we could blend in.

For I felt that the insurrectionists who were trying to break down the door, right here, would spare us if they simply mistook us for Republicans.

But within moments I recognized that blending in was not an option available to my colleagues of color.

So I’m here tonight to say to my brothers and sisters in Congress, and all around our country, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. For I had never understood, really understood, what privilege really means. It took a violent mob of insurrectionists and a lightning bolt moment in this very room.

But now I know, believe me I really know.

But I want to close with an invitation, hopefully an invitation at that, to everybody watching or listening. Whether you experienced January 6th right here in this room, whether you were barricaded in an office across the street, or whether, like most Americans, you experienced it through a television screen: Please do not allow that day to change you for the worse.

Rather, please find something in it to improve yourself, to improve our country, and to improve our world. I surely did, and I hope you’ll join me. With that I yield back.

“Thank you, representative, for that extraordinarily powerful account,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who organized the special order speeches, said.

Watch the clip above via C-Span.