Demonstrators rally Satuday before marching to the National Mall on the 58th anniversary of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech, in Washington, D.C. Photo by Ken Cedeno/UPI | License Photo
Aug. 28 (UPI) -- A "March on for Voting Rights" demonstration was held Saturday in cities across the country to mark the 58th anniversary of the historic "March on Washington" when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech.
Organizers of Saturday's march, including Martin Luther King III, his wife, Arndrea Waters King, and the Rev. Al Sharpton, said in a statement they are demanding that the "I Have a Dream" speech "be deferred no longer."
Specifically, the march is calling on the U.S. Senate to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and the For the People Act and bypass the filibuster if necessary. Millions are expected to join the march in Washington, D.C., Phoenix, Atlanta, Houston and Miami, another statement shows.
A U.S. Supreme Court decision in 2013, dealt a blow to a key provision of the Voting Rights Act, which President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law to prohibit racial discrimination in voting in August 1965. The provision required states with a history of discrimination to obtain federal permission before changing voting procedures.
The John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and the For the People Act seek to restore the strength of the VRA of 1965. The "March on For Voting Rights" event also calls for the passage of the D.C. Admission Act for D.C. statehood, which would allow voting representation for residents in the capital.
McPherson Square filled up Saturday morning as people prepared to march to the National Mall in Washington, D.C., NBC Philadelphia reported. An estimated 75,000 people were expected to join the march in the capital.
A plan to mitigate COVID-19 spread is in place, including "everything from requiring masks to social distancing," National Park Service spokesman Mike Litterist told NBC Philadelphia.
RELATED House Democrats pass John Lewis Voting Rights Act
King III, Waters King, Sharpton, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, youth organizers and community organizers were among the people scheduled to speak on the stage.
Bowser led the crowd in a chant "Free D.C.!" in call for D.C. statehood.
"Some 58 years later, we're still fighting for voting rights and equal rights," said Henry Lewis, brother of the late civil rights activist John Lewis, who received a fractured skull after Alabama state troopers beat him during the so-called "Bloody Sunday" march for voting rights in 1965.
"That kind of tells me that it's not a weeklong fight, or a month, or a year, it's a lifelong fight."
Other speakers included King Jr.'s granddaughter and activist Yolanda King; Philonise Floyd, activist and brother of George Floyd; and NAACP President Derrick Johnson.
"Coretta Scott King told us, 'Freedom is never really won, you earn it and win it in every generation," Waters King, who is also president of the Drum Major Institute, which carries on Dr. King's non-violent work, said in a statement to CNN. "Now is the time to earn and win our sacred right to vote. It is up to us to remind Congress they represent the people, and the people demand the passage of the John Lewis Voting Rights Restoration Act."
The "March on for Voting Rights" will protest 389 bills introduced in 48 states "that amount to shameful, outright voter suppression," another statement on the march's website said.
"These laws suppress voting methods that enrich our democracy and lead to high turnout: banning ballot drop boxes and mail-in voting, reducing early voting days and hours, restricting who can get a mail-in ballot, prohibiting officials from promoting the use of mail-in ballots even when voters qualify, even criminalizing the distribution of water to voters waiting in the long lines these laws create," the statement said.
Leaders of the "March on for Voting Rights" said they are carrying the same resilient spirit as leaders in the civil rights movement who kept marching for voting rights after leaders in the movement, such as Medgar Evers and Jimmie Lee Jackson, were killed, CNN reported.
Prior to the historic "I Have a Dream" speech, white supremacist Byron De La Beckwith killed Evers, an NAACP field secretary and civil rights leader who organized voter registration drives in his driveway in June 1963.
In February 1965, months before the passage of the VRA, James Bonard Fowler fatally shot Jackson, a church deacon, as he tried to protect his mother during a voting rights march in Marion, Ala.
Marchers across US call on Congress to bolster voting rights
By BRIAN SLODYSKO and BOBBY CAINA CALVAN
By BRIAN SLODYSKO and BOBBY CAINA CALVAN
The Rev. Al Sharpton, third from right in front, holds a banner with Martin Luther King, III, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, second from right, and Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, right, among others, during the march to call for sweeping protections against a further erosion of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Saturday, Aug. 28, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Thousands of voting rights advocates rallied across the country Saturday to call for sweeping federal laws that would wipe out voting restrictions advancing in some Republican-controlled states that could make it harder to cast a ballot.
Many activists view the fight over voting rules as the civil rights issue of the era. But frustrations have mounted for months because two expansive election bills have stalled in the U.S. Senate, which is split evenly between Democrats and Republicans and the measures lack the votes to overcome a GOP blockade.
The rallies, which were held in dozens of cities, were intended to increase pressure on Democrats to rewrite procedural rules that would allow Democrats to muscle the legislation through without Republican votes. But they were also aimed at coaxing President Joe Biden to become a more forceful advocate on the issue.
“You said the night you won that Black America had your back, and that you were going to have Black Americans’ backs,” the Rev. Al Sharpton, who helped organize the national demonstrations, said at a rally in Washington. “Well, Mr. President, they’re stabbing us in the back.”
More than a thousand people turned out in sweltering heat on the National Mall on Saturday, the 58th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech.
His son Martin Luther King III used the occasion to call on the Senate to scrap the filibuster rule, which requires 60 votes for most legislation, including the voting bills, to advance.
“Our country is backsliding to the unconscionable days of Jim Crow. And some of our senators are saying, ‘Well, we can’t overcome the filibuster,’” King told the crowd. “I say to you today: Get rid of the filibuster. That is a monument to white supremacy we must tear down.”
At one point, nearly a dozen state lawmakers from Texas who had sought to block changes to their state’s elections laws, strolled onto the stage at the National Mall and were hailed as patriots.
“Texas is the worst state to vote in, in the entire nation,” said U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, a Democrat from Houston.
Even as rally participants pushed for stronger protections, Republican lawmakers in Texas were on the brink of passing an overhaul of its voting laws, including restrictions on voting by mail, limits on when voters can cast ballots and other measures that Republicans say would improve the integrity of its elections.
Texas would be the latest state to pass new laws, following moves in other Republican-controlled states like Arizona, Florida and Georgia to put in place similar restrictions — efforts driven by former President Donald Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen.
Congressional Democrats have responded to the Republican efforts to make it harder to vote by approving legislation earlier this week that would restore sections of the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965. The bill would require the Justice Department to once again police changes to voting laws in states with a history of restricting the vote, a practice that was put on hold by the Supreme Court in 2013.
But unless Democrats make changes to the Senate procedural rules, passage of the bill, as well as a separate measure that would establish national election standards, remains unlikely.
In a video posted on Twitter earlier in the day, Vice President Kamala Harris urged Congress to pass legislation that she said was needed to push back against Republicans in Texas, Florida and other states.
“The country is changing. The demographics are changing. And (Republicans) think that if they don’t get ahead of it and suppress the vote, they ain’t gonna have a say in it,” said Ken Jones, 72, of Atlanta, who traveled to Washington with his wife, Paula, to attend the rally.
Angela Hill, 61, who lives in the Washington area, attended the rally with her daughter because she is “alarmed” by Republican efforts to make it harder to vote. In spite of Trump’s false claims of a stolen victory, Republican and Democratic election officials across the country certified the outcome and Trump’s own attorney general said he saw no evidence of widespread voter fraud.
“Why was it necessary for Republican states to try and make it more difficult to vote? Things went well in this election,” Hill said.
Marches were also scheduled for Atlanta, Miami, Phoenix and other cities under the banner of “March On for Voting Rights,” organized by Sharpton and King. Because of concerns over the fast-spreading delta variant of COVID-19, a march in Houston did not go on as planned.
A daughter of the late civil rights leader, Bernice King, led the march in Atlanta. In an interview with The Associated Press, she called for “new levels of civil disobedience” to push against voting restrictions.
“We’re going to have to disrupt some things. We’ve got to disturb this country to the point that people who are still uninvolved and on the periphery to get involved in some fashion,” she said.
In Phoenix, the Rev. Terry Mackey, the pastor of Pilgrim Rest Baptist Church, urged those attending an indoor rally to honor those who fought and shed blood for voting rights.
“I want you to stand up and fight,” he said, “until every person in this state has the same voting rights as anybody else.”
___
Calvan reported from New York. Associated Press writers Alex Sanz in Atlanta and Paul Davenport in Phoenix contributed to this report.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Thousands of voting rights advocates rallied across the country Saturday to call for sweeping federal laws that would wipe out voting restrictions advancing in some Republican-controlled states that could make it harder to cast a ballot.
Many activists view the fight over voting rules as the civil rights issue of the era. But frustrations have mounted for months because two expansive election bills have stalled in the U.S. Senate, which is split evenly between Democrats and Republicans and the measures lack the votes to overcome a GOP blockade.
The rallies, which were held in dozens of cities, were intended to increase pressure on Democrats to rewrite procedural rules that would allow Democrats to muscle the legislation through without Republican votes. But they were also aimed at coaxing President Joe Biden to become a more forceful advocate on the issue.
“You said the night you won that Black America had your back, and that you were going to have Black Americans’ backs,” the Rev. Al Sharpton, who helped organize the national demonstrations, said at a rally in Washington. “Well, Mr. President, they’re stabbing us in the back.”
More than a thousand people turned out in sweltering heat on the National Mall on Saturday, the 58th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech.
His son Martin Luther King III used the occasion to call on the Senate to scrap the filibuster rule, which requires 60 votes for most legislation, including the voting bills, to advance.
“Our country is backsliding to the unconscionable days of Jim Crow. And some of our senators are saying, ‘Well, we can’t overcome the filibuster,’” King told the crowd. “I say to you today: Get rid of the filibuster. That is a monument to white supremacy we must tear down.”
At one point, nearly a dozen state lawmakers from Texas who had sought to block changes to their state’s elections laws, strolled onto the stage at the National Mall and were hailed as patriots.
“Texas is the worst state to vote in, in the entire nation,” said U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, a Democrat from Houston.
Even as rally participants pushed for stronger protections, Republican lawmakers in Texas were on the brink of passing an overhaul of its voting laws, including restrictions on voting by mail, limits on when voters can cast ballots and other measures that Republicans say would improve the integrity of its elections.
Texas would be the latest state to pass new laws, following moves in other Republican-controlled states like Arizona, Florida and Georgia to put in place similar restrictions — efforts driven by former President Donald Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen.
Congressional Democrats have responded to the Republican efforts to make it harder to vote by approving legislation earlier this week that would restore sections of the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965. The bill would require the Justice Department to once again police changes to voting laws in states with a history of restricting the vote, a practice that was put on hold by the Supreme Court in 2013.
But unless Democrats make changes to the Senate procedural rules, passage of the bill, as well as a separate measure that would establish national election standards, remains unlikely.
In a video posted on Twitter earlier in the day, Vice President Kamala Harris urged Congress to pass legislation that she said was needed to push back against Republicans in Texas, Florida and other states.
“The country is changing. The demographics are changing. And (Republicans) think that if they don’t get ahead of it and suppress the vote, they ain’t gonna have a say in it,” said Ken Jones, 72, of Atlanta, who traveled to Washington with his wife, Paula, to attend the rally.
Angela Hill, 61, who lives in the Washington area, attended the rally with her daughter because she is “alarmed” by Republican efforts to make it harder to vote. In spite of Trump’s false claims of a stolen victory, Republican and Democratic election officials across the country certified the outcome and Trump’s own attorney general said he saw no evidence of widespread voter fraud.
“Why was it necessary for Republican states to try and make it more difficult to vote? Things went well in this election,” Hill said.
Marches were also scheduled for Atlanta, Miami, Phoenix and other cities under the banner of “March On for Voting Rights,” organized by Sharpton and King. Because of concerns over the fast-spreading delta variant of COVID-19, a march in Houston did not go on as planned.
A daughter of the late civil rights leader, Bernice King, led the march in Atlanta. In an interview with The Associated Press, she called for “new levels of civil disobedience” to push against voting restrictions.
“We’re going to have to disrupt some things. We’ve got to disturb this country to the point that people who are still uninvolved and on the periphery to get involved in some fashion,” she said.
In Phoenix, the Rev. Terry Mackey, the pastor of Pilgrim Rest Baptist Church, urged those attending an indoor rally to honor those who fought and shed blood for voting rights.
“I want you to stand up and fight,” he said, “until every person in this state has the same voting rights as anybody else.”
___
Calvan reported from New York. Associated Press writers Alex Sanz in Atlanta and Paul Davenport in Phoenix contributed to this report.
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