Hi John — I got arrested yesterday. Let me tell you why.
For all but the last 56 years of our nation’s history, Black people have been denied the right to vote. Poll taxes, literacy tests, and white primaries were devices used to prevent us from voting. When that didn’t work, we were beaten and killed for daring to exercise that right.
White and Black people have shed blood, and some have died for the cause of ensuring that all citizens have the right to vote, because they realized that if that right is denied to any of us on account of race, then we really don't have a true democracy.
Will you stand with me in my fight to protect the right to vote for all citizens in this country?
Today our democracy is under attack, and one crucial component in that attack are the cunning and fiendish devices Republicans in states like Georgia and Texas are putting in place to prevent the free exercise of the fundamental right to vote, based on The Big Lie. And most unfortunately, the Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision two weeks ago in the Brnovich case significantly weakened Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.
Justice Kagan’s dissent in the Brnovich case raised the alarm: “The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is an extraordinary law. Rarely has a statute required so much sacrifice to ensure its passage. Never has a statute done more to advance the Nation’s highest ideals. And few laws are more vital in the current moment. Yet in the last decade, the Court has treated no statute worse”.
I was arrested yesterday protesting at the Hart office building, demanding filibuster reform, and that Congress pass the H.R.4 and S.4, The John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, and that the Senate pass S.1, the For the People Act to ensure lasting voting protections for people of color. I won’t be intimidated, we’ve had to fight for decades and we won’t stop now.
I may have made headlines and my staff tells me I’ve caused quite a stir online. But what doesn’t make headlines are the many Black people who have to fight tooth and nail to exercise their right as Americans.
Georgia is ground-zero in the fight to protect voting rights. After Black organizers helped carry the state for President Biden and flip the Senate Blue. Republicans know this, and they are trying to remove Black voters from the equation.
Will you rush a donation today so we can fight back against Republican efforts to disenfranchise Black voters?
Thank you for your support,
— Hank
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