Bobby Rush showed courage, says Nancy Pelosi

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi praised Rep. Bobby Rush on Thursday for his statement of wearing a hoodie on the House floor yesterday, according to The Huffington Post.

During her weekly briefing, Pelosi said, "I think that Bobby Rush deserves a great deal of credit for the courage he had to go to the floor in a hoodie knowing that he would be told he was out of order."

Rush was escorted off the House floor after donning the hood and sunglasses while making a statement about the Trayvon Martin case, in which an unarmed black teenager was shot by a neighborhood watch volunteer who was not arrested.

The Democrat from Illinois pulled up the hood of his hoodie while saying, "Just because someone wears a hoodie does not make them a hoodlum," according to The Christian Science Monitor. The reason he was escorted off the floor was because Congress has a strict dress code, with men expected to wear coats and ties. Under House Rule XVII, Section 5, hats are prohibited.

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Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) told Fox News he wanted to send House Speaker John Boehner a friendly note asking for the dress code to be enforced more strictly, pointing out that "You see during late-night votes, people stand in the back with jeans and no jackets and no ties," according to Politico.

Boehner said, "I think the rules are enforced evenly…We expect all members to follow the rules," according to The Huffington Post.

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Rush told reporters, "I wanted to make a statement that a hoodie is nothing but a piece of clothing and it should not be the cause of the death of anybody in America. It’s just a piece of clothing. It’s wrong when a young man, Trayvon Martin, or any other young man is killed just for wearing a piece of clothing and being in the wrong neighborhood at the wrong time. And being of the wrong color," according to The Washington Post.

Rush, who was a civil rights activist in the 1960s, was previously best known as the one politician to beat President Barack Obama in an election and represents a district in Chicago that's 65 percent black, according to The Daily Beast. Rush's own 29-year-old son was killed in 1999, which probably led to Rush identifying very strongly with the Trayvon Martin case.

Rush told reporters, "I honor the traditions of the House, but sometimes decorum has to take a back seat, especially when it comes to justice and the right of any American."

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Here is video from C-SPAN of Rush's statement being interrupted:

See our complete Trayvon Martin case coverage.