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Latasha Brown, co-founder of Black Voters Matter, said the president’s possible move was admirable, but “we can’t just have token progress.”
President Joe biden knelt in the East Room during the Seattle Storm 2021 WNBA Champions Celebration, on the eve of the vote on the John Lewis Voting Rights Act in the House and days before the anniversary of the March on Washington.
While the WNBA has been at the forefront of professional basketball when it comes to social justice and police reform issues, this isn’t the first time the President has gone to his knees with a sports organization. A photo cited by a White House source pointed to a photo with the Los Angeles Dodgers celebrating their Major League Baseball Championship.
Latasha Brown, co-founder of Black Voters Matter, said the president’s possible gesture was admirable. However, Brown cautioned “we can’t just have token progress.”
Albright Cliff, co-founder and executive director of Black Voters Matter, said their goal remains to “push through a comprehensive police reform on politics and voting rights” and to have the president recognize “as filibuster. has metaphorically a knee on us for a long time. “
The House is set to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act on Tuesday. South Carolina Congressman and House Majority Whip James clyburn expects the bill to also pass in the Senate despite the filibuster still going on in that chamber. Systematic obstruction has so far been the tactic of delaying the passage of voting rights in the Senate.
Democratic House leaders are expected to meet with voting rights activists, lawyers and subfaith religious leaders this week to discuss all the options on the table. The Poor People Campaign will be among the organizations present at the talks.
Without the For the People Act, Brown reports that Americans are voting as we did in 1965, when two Supreme Court actions gutted sections of historic law and some Republican-led states create laws of restrictive voting.
Anger and frustration are palpable in the current state of voting rights.
President Biden’s inaction is also a flashpoint for Brown. She asked, “Where is that kind of passion, energy and commitment to voting rights? Because I don’t really see him being able to say he’s ready to do it.
Brown is part of the leadership of the Good Trouble rally taking place on Saturday, the anniversary of the March on Washington. There is another activation on the same day, the annual commemoration of the March on Washington led by the Rev. Al sharpton and Martin Luther King III. Saturday’s two activations will focus on the issue of voting rights and police reform.
Tuesday’s House vote on voting rights could cause activists at both events to recalibrate the message of the march and rally that is expected to draw thousands to the National Mall in Washington and the Lincoln Memorial.
Organizers of both rallies say the goal and purpose are the same for the adoption of voting rights and police reform.
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Post Biden kneels at the White House celebration of WNBA champions Seattle Storm first appeared on TheGrio.
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