Stewart Acuff
Chief of Staff and Assistant to the President, Utility Workers Union of America
Wednesday night I watched a recording of Lyndon Johnson making a speech for passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Johnson’s statement in the course of the speech, “We Shall Overcome,” stills moves me.
The Supreme Court of a truly democratic nation would not even hear this case seeking to overturn the Voting Rights Act. My friend Rev. James Orange helped ogranize the Selma to Montgomery march. Every year he took me to the historical re-enactment. The amount of blood that the passage of the Voting Rights Act required is a stain on our nation. Its repeal by an un-elected rightwing Supreme Court would be a dishonor to our nation and a dishonor to all the sacrifice of all those who struggled for its passage
All the radical right wing efforts to frustrate voters of color this year is nauseating, as is so-called Justice Scalia saying there is “racial entitlement.” Our nation’s democracy is threatened continually by radical right wing Republicans who don’t want a real democracy, who try to buy elections, and who change voting rules to intimidate and frustrate voters.
The radical right wing Republicans would make a mockery of our martyrs and slowly but surely dismantle American Democracy.
Brothers and sisters, we will have to sacrifice to protect this democracy.
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Posted February 28, 2013 at 10:24 am, in Free Speech Zone
