At the height of the civil rights movement, before he could even dream of becoming a congressman from Georgia, Lewis trekked cross-country as one of the original 13 Freedom Riders. He was chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. In Alabama, he marched from Selma to Montgomery and was beaten on Bloody Sunday as he attempted to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge with other marchers.
Category: Equal Rights (Page 4 of 6)
Three years ago this week — on June 25, 2013 — the U.S. Supreme Court in its Shelby County v. Holder decision gutted the Voting Rights Act (VRA), a civil rights law signed by President Lyndon Johnson in 1965 to ban racial discrimination in voting. Within minutes of that decision, then-Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott tweeted that the state’s strict voter ID law should go into effect immediately. The following day, Alabama said it would finally start enforcing the photo ID law it had passed two years earlier. And weeks later, North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory signed a monster voter suppression law (H.B. 589) that is still today being challenged in court — and for good reason. North Carolina voters like Dale Hicks, featured in the video below, couldn’t vote in 2014 because of H.B. 589.
Hicks isn’t alone. Voters across the country are facing new voting restrictions passed in the wake of Shelby. In their recent report, “Democracy Diminished: State and Local Threats to Voting Post-Shelby County, Alabama v. Holder,” NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) details both proposed and implemented state, county, and local voting changes in the last three years in jurisdictions formerly covered by the VRA. Beginning in June 2014, for example, Virginia had implemented a photo ID law even though nearly 200,000 voters in the state lacked a driver’s license. This list of voting changes goes on. And on.
The time is now to #RestoreTheVRA
Five of the states previously covered by the VRA (Arizona, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, and Texas) are also competitive in this year’s general election — in the presidential race, but also some senatorial and gubernatorial races. In a new report, “Warning Signs: The Potential Impact of Shelby County v. Holder on the 2016 General Election,” The Leadership Conference Education Fund found that the voter suppression in these states unleashed by Shelbycould impact this year’s election. Now that they’re no longer subject to oversight or accountability, each state has enacted its own set of voting laws that harm voters of color. Unfortunately, leaders in Congress have yet to show any interest in working to solve the problem.
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It’s no laughing matter. Just this week, a Utah father said he got into an altercation with another man in a Walmart bathroom over the weekend after bringing his son and his daughter into the men’s restroom with him.
Chris Adams told Fox 13 Now Wednesday that he had taken his 7-year-old son and his 5-year-old daughter to shop for storage bins at the Walmart in Clinton. During their run, both children needed to use the bathroom.
Adams said he took both of his children into the men’s bathroom. He said another man inside the restroom saw his daughter with him.
“This guy walks in and goes to the bathroom, the urinal,” Adams told KSL Tuesday. “Then he just, like, turns to me and starts freaking out, dropping the ‘F-bomb,’ and what he was freaking out about was that my daughter was in the men’s bathroom.”
He said the man started a fight with him that carried out into the store. Adams said the other man kept saying it was inappropriate for his young daughter to be in the bathroom with him.
Punches were exchanged, but Adams was able to pin the attacker down. Clinton police arrived at the store and found the other man still in the store and cited him for disorderly conduct.
Authorities are reviewing the incident and are deciding whether to press charges, Fox 13 Now reported. Officials have not identified the man.
Google just announced that its YouTube division will be the official livestream provider of the Donald Trump-led Republican convention, despite massive pressure from activists demanding the company stand up for its alleged values of diversity and inclusion in the face of Trump’s racism, xenophobia and misogyny.
Help make sure Google gets the message by sharing this video.
Martin Luther King, Jr to César Chávez
“As brothers in the fight for equality, I extend the hand of fellowship and good will and wish continuing success to you and your members. The fight for equality must be fought on many fronts–in the urban slums, in the sweat shops of the factories and fields. Our separate struggles are really one–a struggle for freedom, for dignity and for humanity,” his message, which was dated September 22, 1966 read. “You and your fellow workers have demonstrated your commitment to righting grievous wrongs forced upon exploited people. We are together with you in spirit and in determination that our dreams for a better tomorrow will be realized.”
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