NNPA NEWSWIRE — Dozens of state legislatures introduced bills to restrict the practice of voting by mail. Other states have begun aggressively removing voters from the rolls and re-drawing Congressional maps blatantly designed to silence the Black vote.
When former Ambassador Andrew Young turned 80, the late Congressman John Lewis spoke of his contributions to the city of Atlanta and the world, “He has been a voice for what is right, fair, and just. Young helped make America and the world a better place.”
Dr. Saul E. Lankster II created a benchmark in American history. He became the first Black Firefighter in Compton, California. Today, Dr. Lankster continues to lift while he climbs as a National University (NU) Associate Faculty member that focuses on the progression of criminal justice.
Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA), Chairwoman of the House Committee on Financial Services, will join a Congressional delegation to San Diego to participate in the Christening Ceremony for the USNS John Lewis, the first ship in the T-AO Fleet Oiler Program. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is leading the Congressional delegation. The program is dedicated in honor of the late Congressman John Lewis of Georgia. The ceremony will take place July 17, 2021, one year after the Congressman’s passing.
While some of us are spending our time watching the news or wondering how we are going to survive the pandemic, now is the time to understand the battles we are in and determine what we must do individually and collectively.
YouthBuild Champions are congressional leaders who advocate for funding and policies that benefit opportunity youth and their communities. Every year, these elected officials author and lead the signing campaigns of Dear Colleague letters that signal Congress’s strong bipartisan, bicameral support for the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) YouthBuild program.
This year, we said goodbye to amazing men and women, who left lasting legacies with their work, talents and life.
President Trump wants to paper over the living wound of racism. He’s issued Executive Orders and established a new national commission designed to whitewash our history—and deny the daily reality of being Black in America. He actively appeals to white supremacists and fans the flames of hatred and division in our country, because he thinks it benefits him politically. He ignores the most basic job of every president: the duty to care for all of us, not just those who voted for him.
The Democratic and Republican Conventions have always been a sight to behold. Most of us wait in anticipation over all the fanfare and excitement that happens when they occur. Every four years, leaders and party supporters come together to rally around their chosen candidate and to help the voters get to know a little more about the candidates and their families. The pandemic has made all of us adjust to a new way of doing things and this even includes political conventions. Everything has gone virtual. Or at least we are told that is how things should be; but there will always be those that do not follow the rules.
Even in the darkest of times, we can hear our friend and mentor John Lewis: “Ours is not the struggle of one day, one week, or one year. Ours is not the struggle of one judicial appointment or presidential term. Ours is the struggle of a lifetime, or maybe even many lifetimes, and each one of us in every generation must do our part.”
August 6 was the 55th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act. If the constitutional amendments passed after the Civil War — the 13, 14 and 15th Amendments — were the “second founding” of democracy in America, the Voting Rights Act, which after nearly a century of segregation gave legal effect to the 15th Amendment that outlawed discrimination in the right to vote, should be considered the “third founding.”
As a boy, John listened through the door after bedtime as his father’s friends complained about the Klan. One Sunday as a teenager, he heard Dr. King preach on the radio. As a college student in Tennessee, he signed up for Jim Lawson’s workshops on the tactic of nonviolent civil disobedience. John Lewis was getting something inside his head, an idea he couldn’t shake that took hold of him – that nonviolent resistance and civil disobedience were the means to change laws, but also change hearts, and change minds, and change nations, and change the world.
The battle of LA took place on the first day of the NBA restart in Orlando, Florida. The thunderous environment in Staples Center was missing but the star-studded talent was still present as the Lakers defeated the Clippers in a nail-biter, 103-101.
The civil rights leaders led his life my example that fighting for justice is the only option.
