Thousands of people demonstrated Saturday in Washington, Houston, Atlanta and dozens of other American cities. to defend the right to vote of minorities, threatened according to organizers of protests over laws passed this year in several conservative states.
The date of these mobilizations was not chosen at random: it was on August 28, 1963 that before about 250,000 people, Martin Luther King released his “I have a dream”, a speech that has become a benchmark in the fight for civil rights.
“We will make history”
“We will make history carrying the torch of justice that my father and so many others carried” 58 years ago, his son promised, Martin Luther King III, before asking the crowd not to abandon the fight for equality at the polls. “It is you who carry that dream and the time has come to realize it,” he told the demonstrators, fewer in number than in 1963.
About 20,000 people gathered in Washington, according to organizers. Police did not give a figure. Raising banners with slogans such as “the right to vote for all” or “the vote is sacred”, the protesters marched through the humid heat of the federal capital, from the White House to the Capitol, the seat of Congress.
“I feel like we’ve gone back in time,” said Rikkea Harris, a 25-year-old student who traveled from Colorado to participate in the protest. Along with him, his father, Rickey Harris, 65, commented: “It is necessary that everyone contributes to try to overturn these restrictive electoral laws.”
Limits
Congress passed the Voting Rights Act in 1965, which prohibits discriminatory measures in this regard. But some states have continued, with often highly technical measures, limiting access to the polls to minorities, especially African-Americans, who vote primarily for Democrats.
This process has recently been accelerated in the Republican states in the context of unproven accusations of massive electoral fraud made by the former president. Donald trump in the presidential elections of November 2020.
Since January, at least 18 states have passed 30 restrictive election laws and dozens more are under review, according to the Brennan Center for Justice think tank.. The rules vary by state, from the obligation to have an address to register on electoral lists to the prohibition of voting from the car in the midst of a pandemic.
Racist laws
They are racist and undemocratic laws, denounce the organizers of the protests on Saturday, which demand that Congress take action on the matter. The Democratic-majority House of Representatives adopted two electoral reform bills this year that aim to limit those restrictions, but the texts currently have no chance to overcome the expected Republican blockade in the Senate.
Thousands of people gathered last year in Washington to commemorate this anniversary date and demand an end to police violence against African Americans, during a demonstration marked by the memory of the death of George Floyd in May 2020. “A year later I am disappointed,” Rickey argues, because “It seems we are going in the wrong direction.”
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