Tag: Civil Rights Era

Rep. Wm. Lacy Clay: Evoking MLK, Philando Castile’s shooter “did not act alone”

William ClayI will close with this: a brief teaching from the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., on the occasion of another needless tragedy, the police killing of civil rights worker Jimmie Lee Jackson by an Alabama State trooper in 1965. In his eulogy, King said: “A State trooper pointed the gun, but he did not act alone. He was murdered by the brutality of every sheriff who practices lawlessness in the name of the law.”

—Rep. Wm. Lacy Clay (D–MO)

On Philando Castile and the Police Training and Independent Review Act of 2017, House Floor, June 27, 2017

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Sen. Patrick Leahy: Shelby County v. Holder “has taken this country back to an era before the Civil Rights movement”

Patrick LeahyBut the Supreme Court’s decision [Shelby County v. Holder] has taken this country back to an era before the Civil Rights movement–a bad time in our history where some states openly discriminated against minority voters.

Just yesterday, we marked the 53rd anniversary of three civil rights activists who were killed in Mississippi for registering minorities to vote. Continue reading Sen. Patrick Leahy: Shelby County v. Holder “has taken this country back to an era before the Civil Rights movement”

Sen. Cory Booker: Tradition of the Senate is to “slow things down”

Cory BookerWe have seen this body, in the very short period of time I have been here, begin to undermine not just things that happened under the Obama administration but to undermine traditions that go back decades, if not more than a century.
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The longest filibuster on this floor … It was actually almost exactly 60 years ago. Continue reading Sen. Cory Booker: Tradition of the Senate is to “slow things down”

Rep. Hakeem Jeffries: Surge in racism is, in part, “connected to a historic backlash”

Hakeem JeffriesNow, in part, what we are seeing is connected to a historic backlash that has often occurred throughout this journey that we have been on here in America, that whenever we make significant progress, there is always a backlash amongst some in America who have got a problem with the fact that we have done things designed to be more consistent with our values of liberty and justice for all, equal protection under the law.

We know slavery was the original sin here in America. Continue reading Rep. Hakeem Jeffries: Surge in racism is, in part, “connected to a historic backlash”

Sen. Tom Cotton on expanding the Central High School Historic Site

Tom Cotton

Editor’s note: Several senators have introduced a bill to extend the boundary of Little Rock’s Central High School Historical Site to include nearby homes. The full text of Senator Cotton’s introduction appears after the jump.

September will mark the 60th anniversary of the Little Rock Nine, the nine African-American students who enrolled in the then-all-white Little Rock Central High School in 1957. Ask anyone who lived through the crisis, and they will tell you they remember it vividly. Continue reading Sen. Tom Cotton on expanding the Central High School Historic Site

Sarah Sanders: Johnson Amendment Akin to Silencing Martin Luther King

Look, I think it’s very hard to argue that a pastor or another faith leader shouldn’t be able to speak out about morality in the public square.  I think that it would be almost like Martin Luther King, Jr. shouldn’t have been allowed to speak out against George Wallace.  I don’t think anybody in this room would argue that that would be an appropriate thing to do, and that is what the Johnson Amendment currently does.  And we see this as a hurdle to freedom of speech, and certainly something that should be protected.

—Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Sanders

Press Gaggle, May 4, 2017

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