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selma
Dem Leaders Urged to Mark Bloody Sunday by Acting on Voting Rights, Economic Justice
"This is no time for foolishness, photo-ops, and flaky commitments," declares a letter from faith leaders including Bishop William Barber II and Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis of the Poor People's Campaign.
Feb 20, 2023
" Selma is sacred ground. It is, in a very real sense, the delivery room where the possibility of a true democracy was born. It is no place to play or to be for political pretense. Either you're serious or not. If you're coming, come on Sunday, the actual day of remembrance. If you're coming, come with a commitment to fight for what these people were willing to give their lives for."
That's the message that faith and rights leaders sent in a Monday letter to U.S. President Joe Biden and members of Congress ahead of the anniversary of Bloody Sunday—when white police officers violently assaulted civil rights advocates, including future Congressman John Lewis (D-Ga.), as they marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Alabama on March 7, 1965.
The sign-on letter is led by the co-chairs of the Poor People's Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival—Bishop William Barber II and Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis—along with former Democratic Alabama state Sen. Hank Sanders, Faya Rose Touré, Rev. Mark Thompson, Rebecca Marion, and Rev. Carolyn Foster. It is open for signature on the Repairers of the Breach website.
"#SelmaIsSacredGround, not a place for political pretense."
"This is a critical year in the life of our country," the seven initial signatories wrote. "On the one hand, the president and progressive members of Congress have fought to pass policies that have lifted up Americans in many ways. From Covid relief measures to infrastructure investments to child tax credits that lifted millions of children out of poverty (for a brief moment) to the appointment of the first Black woman Supreme Court Justice, we can celebrate some real progress."
"But, on the other hand, with a Democratic president and control of the House and Senate for two years, Democratic leadership was unable to raise the federal minimum wage," they continued, also noting that a few obstructionist Democrats repeatedly helped Senate Republicans block efforts to restore the Voting Rights Act by supporting the filibuster.
That obstruction, they explained, enabled "regressive legislative bodies across the nation to pass more voter suppression bills than any time since Jim Crow and to go through another round of dangerous redistricting, which nullifies the potential power of progressive voting coalitions by stacking and packing votes in certain districts to predetermine outcomes before any vote is cast."
\u201cAhead of the 58th anniv. of Bloody Sunday, @brepairers is joined in this call by Rev. Liz Theoharis @liztheo, Hank Sanders, Faya Rose Toure, Rev. Mark Thompson @ministter, Rebecca Marion, Board Chair, Bridge Crossing Jubilee, Rev. Carolyn Foster of the @AlabamaPPC, and others.\u201d— Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II (@Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II) 1676925038
Highlighting research that shows tens of millions of Americans face some form of voter suppression, the letter leaders argue that if Biden and other politicians plan to visit Selma—which was recently devastated by a tornado—for the Bloody Sunday anniversary, they should "declare that the fight for voting rights and the restoration of what they marched across that bridge for is not over."
The letter also demands urgent action on living wages and investments in rural areas, stressing that millions of people—particularly in Southern states—live "in poverty and low-wealth conditions" and remain "uninsured or underinsured at a time when we have more people on healthcare than ever before," three years into the Covid-19 pandemic.
"Those of us who are planning to be in Selma to honor the struggle for voting rights and economic justice should be willing to protest and engage nonviolently if politicians attempt to do moral harm to the memory and the sacredness of what happened on Bloody Sunday," declares the letter. "This is no time for foolishness, photo-ops, and flaky commitments."
"Let us be clear: To honor the memory of Bloody Sunday is to work for the full restoration of the Voting Rights Act, the passage of the original For the People Act that John Lewis helped to write, not the bill that was watered down by Joe Manchin," the letter continues, calling out the pro-filibuster West Virginia Democrat infamous for thwarting his own party's agenda.
"To commemorate Bloody Sunday," the letter adds, "is to commit to raising of the minimum wage to a living wage, to ensuring that every American has adequate healthcare, and to enacting economic development that touches poor and low-wealth communities."
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This Vote That I Have...
We must come together as a coalition powerful enough to end and overcome the suppression and organize the resurrection of fusion politics in the South.
Mar 12, 2022
The following are the prepared remarks from Bishop William J. Barber II, president and senior lecture of Repairers of the Breach and co-chair of the Poor People's Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival, delivered March 11, 2022, on last day of the Selma-to-Montgomery march which started earlier in the week.
Since we left Selma on Monday morning, I had to make a detour to Memphis to stand with Starbucks workers who were fired for trying to organize a union. And as I was driving from that march back to this one, I thought about how movements are always about the people. Yes, we march for freedom. Yes, we march for justice. But we do it because we know and love people who are bound; people who suffer from injustice.
The fight for voting rights today is and must be always connected to the fight to address the poverty that impacts 140 million Americans.
And I thought to myself, why don't we insist on naming the bridge and highway after the people who motivate us in this struggle? I wasn't in Selma with you because I hate a former Klansman named Edmund Pettus. No, I was there because I loved and learned from every foot soldier.
Why don't we call it the "People's Bridge" and place the names of every person killed? Jimmie Lee Jackson. James Reeb. Viola Liuzzo. Why don't we place the name of every foot soldier beaten, Amelia Boynton, John Lewis and every person who eventually crossed, the lawyers who fought the legal battles?
When I look down from these steps today, I'm not here because George Wallace once thought this state house would stand as an eternal fortress against desegregation. No, I'm here because the preacher who learned to be a pastor at that little church down there on the left stood here 57 years ago and taught some history that we desperately need to remember now. Here's what Dr. King said when they arrived on March 25th, 1965.
"Toward the end of the Reconstruction era, something very significant happened." (The movement began uniting the Negro and white masses especially poor into a voting bloc made up of all people that threatened to drive the southern aristocracy and money interests from the command posts of political power in the South.)
To meet this threat, the Southern aristocracy began immediately to engineer the development of a segregated society. Racism is rooted in the fear of a restructuring of the American economic architecture to help everyone. So Dr. King stood here and taught a history lesson. Listen to what he said:
"Thus, the threat of the free exercise of the ballot by the Negro and the white masses alike resulted in the establishment of a segregated society. That's what happened when the Negro and white masses of the South threatened to unite and build a great society: a society of justice where none would pray upon the weakness of others; a society of plenty where greed and poverty would be done away with.
We must remember this today.
There is not a state in the South where the voting population is under 40% poor and low-income people. One-third of America's poor live in the South. If we remember the original wisdom and political understanding of the Selma-to-Montgomery march, we have an opportunity to galvanize enough of this demographic to change the South and change the nation.
The South is not so much a Red voting region; it is a voter suppression region, an abandoned region, where far too many politicians--Black and white, Democrats and Republicans--ignore the power of poor and low-wealth voters.
Today, for those of us raised in the South and who live in the South, our work must be to keep building a moral fusion movement. We must come together as a coalition powerful enough to end and overcome the suppression and organize the resurrection of fusion politics in the South. We must build power to enact a Third Reconstruction agenda to end systemic racism, poverty, ecological devastation, the denial of healthcare, the disabling of public education, the war economy, and the false, distorted narrative of religious nationalism for the saving of the soul of this country.
(Watch the full speech, which begins at approximately 1:59:06, here)
Selma-to-Montgomery was not about personality. And it wasn't just Black people on that march. It was a direct action in a moral movement to change the soul of the country, obtaining the full promise of democracy. Voting policy was key to the vision then, and this should be our focus today:
- Mobilizing voters
- Marching in the street
- Moving in nonviolent civil disobedience
Moral movements are never just about one issue. They have always been and should be about building power to change systems for uplift of the masses, especially the poor.
When Dr. King stood here and gave the "why" for their march, he listed:
- challenging segregated housing (ghetto or social and economic depression) until Negroes and whites live side by side in decent, safe, and sanitary housing.
- challenging every vestige of segregated and inferior education.
- challenging poverty until wrinkled stomachs in Mississippi are filled, idle industries of Appalachia are realized and revitalized, and broken lives in sweltering ghettos are mended and remolded.
He said, Let us march on ballot boxes until race-baiters disappear from the political arena.
Replaced by people who will not fear to do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with thy God.
And this should still be our spirit today.
The fight for voting rights today is and must be always connected to the fight to address the poverty that impacts 140 million Americans. The 87 million Americans who are uninsured or under-insured. The 4 million who can buy unleaded gas but can't get unleaded water in their homes.
The 31 million working people who do not earn $15 an hour.
Regressive corporate money is trying to block voting rights and create gerrymandered districts that determine who can be elected before votes even cast, because they oppose the people's agenda on all of these issues.
Voting rights and labor rights are the same fight along with living wages, health care, immigrant, and LGBTQ rights.
We cannot win on any one of these issues unless we come together and fight voter suppression that may target Black and brown people, but IT HURTS US ALL.
In Hebrews, the word for vote is the same word for voice--kol.
Kol: My voice comes from God. Kol: My vote comes from God.
This is why, for us, voting rights is a moral issue. We demand Democrats bring the original For the People Act that John Lewis helped to write back before the Senate.
We demand to bring back to the floor a full restoration of the Voting Rights Act.
We demand a vote on living wages.
We will march and protest and even put our bodies on the line because this kol we have...this vote we have... this power we have.
God gave it to me. The world didn't give it to me. And the world can't take it away.
___
The Poor People's Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival is holding a 10-state Mobilization leading to the Mass Poor People's Assembly and Moral March on Washington and to the Polls. This program on June 18th is not just a day of action but a declaration of an ongoing, committed moral movement.
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Anniversary of Selma Should Remind Americans How Democracy Is Defended
African Americans won the right to vote because we and our allies marched for it, demonstrated for it, were beaten and died to gain it. After Selma, people of conscience demanded that the country live up to its Constitution and its democratic ideals.
Mar 08, 2022
Politicians for both parties loudly praise the courage of Ukrainians defending their democracy from the Russian invasion. Yet, bipartisan defense of democracy disappears when the question is democracy at home. Mar. 7 marked the 57th anniversary of "Bloody Sunday" in 1965, when the police attack of a peaceful march of Blacks seeking the right to vote in Selma, Alabama, stirred the outrage that led to passage of the Voting Rights Act.
At stake is the direction of the country. Republicans have voted against raising the minimum wage, paid family leave, support for families with children, affordable day care, affordable prescription drugs, and fair taxes on the rich.
Today the right to vote is once more in question.
We witness the second great drive to suppress voting in American history. The first came after the Civil War, when the constitutional amendment to free the slaves and guarantee the right to vote to African Americans sparked a vicious reaction across the South to enforce segregation and suppress the right to vote.
Today, Republican politicians are making it harder to vote, particularly for those in urban areas, on Native American reservations and on college campuses. In July 2021, the Brennan Center reported that lawmakers had introduced at least 389 restrictive bills in 48 states in the 2021 legislative sessions, while 17 states enacted 28 new laws that restrict voting access.
Partisan gerrymandering has been given a free pass by right-wing judges on the Supreme Court. Worse, election officials are under assault. One in six have received threats of violence; one in three say they feel unsafe. As President Joe Biden declared, "We're facing the most significant test of our democracy since the Civil War."
The reason for the assault is clear. After 2020, Republicans know that they are the minority and their prospects are getting worse with younger, more diverse voters. In the last presidential election, Donald Trump captured a stunning 74 million votes, but Joe Biden won 81 million.
When the House of Representatives took up legislation to revive the Voting Rights Act, what used to enjoy bipartisan support was passed, but with a partisan divide. Similarly, when the Senate considered the For the People Act to create federal safeguards on voting rights, limit the role of secret money in politics and rein in gerrymandering, Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah described it as a bill "written in Hell by the Devil himself." Republicans used a filibuster to block passage of both bills.
The anniversary of Selma reminds us of how democracy is defended. Southern senators blocked any reforms at the federal level for years. In the states, police and organized terror enforced the suppression of Black votes.
African Americans won the right to vote because we and our allies marched for it, demonstrated for it, were beaten and died to gain it. And finally, after Selma, people of conscience demanded that the country live up to its Constitution and its democratic ideals. That is when President Lyndon Johnson could overcome the filibuster and pass the Voting Rights Act.
If the new voter suppression effort is to be overcome, it won't come from the White House or Congress. The Justice Department will do its best, but will face obstruction from right-wing judges. In states controlled by Republicans, the onslaught is brazen and clear.
What is needed now is massive, unrelenting, passionate organizing to register people to vote and to get them to the polls. Mobilized people won't be intimidated. With organization, the tricks and traps passed to suppress the vote can be overcome. Workers will have to sacrifice if early voting hours are restricted. Urban voters will have to put up with long lines, since polling sites are being eliminated. Mail-in ballots will face more obstacles. College students may need to organize the ID needed to qualify to vote on their campuses.
At stake is the direction of the country. Republicans have voted against raising the minimum wage, paid family leave, support for families with children, affordable day care, affordable prescription drugs, and fair taxes on the rich. They oppose action on catastrophic climate change. They vote against reproductive choice, civil rights, environmental and worker protections. They oppose tuition-free college and student debt relief.
All of these are supported by the vast majority of Americans. So, Republicans try to make voting harder.
We don't have to risk the bullets of the Ku Klux Klan or the billy clubs of Southern sheriffs as the marchers of Selma faced. We do have to organize to make our voices heard and our votes cast and counted. Historically, the core of the reform majority--African Americans, Hispanics, single women, the young--turn out in smaller numbers in off-year elections.
We can't afford that this year. At stake is literally what kind of country we will live in.
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