Listening, watching the news, I feel like I’ve been transported back in time to a different and less enlightened America. A time before the Voting Rights Act was passed. A time when “civil rights” was a dream. The new Republican Party seems to be starting a march through every state in this country, seeking to turn back the clock, and even beyond Selma, Alabama in 1965.
Beginning on March 4, 2012, Rev. Al Sharpton and some members of the Congressional Black Caucus will revisit the path to voting rights that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. marched on in 1965. It’s not a commemoration; it’s about voter disenfranchisement and upholding the right to vote for all Americans. Read the article below. This is real.
Sharpton, CBC Join Forces on Voter Suppression | By Lauren Victoria Burke, Special to The Informer | Wed. 22 Feb. 2012 15:48
In an effort to spur activism and create a political tipping point on the issue, members of the Congressional Black Caucus are joining forces with National Action Network President Rev. Al Sharpton, against voter suppression. Rev. Sharpton will lead a march from Selma, Ala. tracing the historic steps of Dr. Martin Luther King. He will be joined by several members of the CBC.
The march will begin on Sunday, March 4 in Selma, Ala. and end on March 9 in Montgomery. One goal is to recreate three historic voting rights marches held in 1965. As a result of those efforts, Congress passed the Voting Rights Act signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson on August 6, 1965.
“We will stay in the same encampments that Dr. King and the marchers stayed at in 1965,” Sharpton said. Alabama’s immigration laws will also be a focus of the effort.
“We’ve made a lot of progress in this country but we are going backwards when people — based on what they look like — become suspects,” Sharpton said referring to Alabama’s immigration laws.
“In this day and age, when states like my own are now promulgating voter ID laws that actually suppress and discourage folks from voting, something needs to be done,” said Freshman CBC Rep. Terri Sewell (D-Ala.).
Sharpton said the march is a kickoff to turn the political table against present voter ID laws in 34 states with a “national mobilization” effort. The National Urban League, the NAACP, LaRaza and NOW will also be part of Sharpton’s march.
Sharpton views the march and rally effort as a chance to resist laws already passed and galvanize critical mass against them rather than simply accept what is now law. “We don’t want to accommodate that until we have to get there,” Sharpton said answering a reporter’s question on whether his efforts would help voters navigate existing laws. [Full Text]
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