Donald
Trump is not the first President who failed to take action on racial
issues.
“If I come out for the anti-lynching bill now, they [the southern
Senators] will block every bill I ask Congress to pass to keep America from
collapsing. I just can’t take the risk.”
Franklin Roosevelt said that to Walter White, the director of the NAACP.
Lynching would be a federal crime under the Justice In Policing Act, the legislation introduced by Democrats in Washington last week.
It was FDR’s protege, then Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson, who engineered the passage of the 1957 Civil Rights Act, the first such legislation since Reconstruction.
It took the assassination of John F. Kennedy to pass the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the near fatal beating of John Lewis to bring about the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the murders of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy to enact the 1968 Civil Rights Act.
There is precedent, regretfully, for the loss of life bringing about reform.
The House of Delegates Workgroup to Address Police Reform and Accountability in Maryland will hold its first meeting on June 23.
As a member of the workgroup, I will listen to and learn from my colleagues, the experts, and the public.
“These issues…can’t be gotten rid of with good intentions,” Senator Cory Booker has said.
We need legislation that addresses the problems before us.
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You can speak with Dr. Sonja Santelises, CEO of the Baltimore City Public Schools on our 41st District Town Hall Tuesday evening from 5:30-6:30. For details on this Zoom meeting, write JGreenfield@house.state.md.us or call 410-664-2646.
