The following is an
excerpt from a statement from activist Bree Newsome, pictured above removing the Confederate battle flag on the South Carolina capitol grounds:
The night of the Charleston Massacre, I had a crisis of faith. The people who gathered for Bible study in Emmanuel AME Church that night—Cynthia Marie Graham Hurd, Susie Jackson, Ethel Lee Lance, Depayne Middleton-Doctor, Tywanza Sanders, Daniel Simmons, Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, Myra Thompson and Rev. Clementa Pinckney (rest in peace)—were only doing what Christians are called to do when anyone knocks on the door of the church: invite them into fellowship and worship.
The day after the massacre I was asked what the next step was and I said I didn’t know. We’ve been here before and here we are again: black people slain simply for being black; an attack on the black church as a place of spiritual refuge and community organization.
I refuse to be ruled by fear. How can America be free and be ruled by fear? How can anyone be?
So, earlier this week I gathered with a small group of concerned citizens, both black and white, who represented various walks of life, spiritual beliefs, gender identities and sexual orientations. Like millions of others in America and around the world, including South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley and President Barack Obama, we felt (and still feel) that the confederate battle flag in South Carolina, hung in 1962 at the height of the Civil Rights Movement, must come down. (Of course, we are not the first to demand the flag’s removal. Civil rights groups in South Carolina and nationwide have been calling for the flag’s removal since the moment it was raised, and I acknowledge their efforts in working to remove the flag over the years via the legislative process.)
We discussed it and decided to remove the flag immediately, both as an act of civil disobedience and as a demonstration of the power people have when we work together. Achieving this would require many roles, including someone who must volunteer to scale the pole and remove the flag. It was decided that this role should go to a black woman and that a white man should be the one to help her over the fence as a sign that our alliance transcended both racial and gender divides. We made this decision because for us, this is not simply about a flag, but rather it is about abolishing the spirit of hatred and oppression in all its forms.
I removed the flag not only in defiance of those who enslaved my ancestors in the southern United States, but also in defiance of the oppression that continues against black people globally in 2015, including the ongoing ethnic cleansing in the Dominican Republic. I did it in solidarity with the South African students who toppled a statue of the white supremacist, colonialist Cecil Rhodes. I did it for all the fierce black women on the front lines of the movement and for all the little black girls who are watching us. I did it because I am free.
Blast from the Past. At Daily Kos on this date in 2013—Think globally, act locally: The case for paying a lot more attention to state legislative races:
It is pretty easy to see why state legislative races get scant attention. For one thing, there are just so damned many of them. At Daily Kos Elections, the traditional focus has been statewide elections (gubernatorial elections, particularly) and the battle for Congress. That's because, weeding out the "some dude" races and the unopposed incumbents, the field of coverage is still quite manageable.
Come November of 2014, we may well be talking about 100-150 contests, at the very most.
How many state legislative seats will be up for grabs between then and now? North of 7,000 seats. We're good, but we're not that good.
But one of my homework assignments over the next several months is to establish a database of state legislative races, in order to winnow the field down to a more reasonable number and keep our community (particularly the DKE community) appraised of what is going on in those races.
After all, a case could be made that not only are the goings-on in the various state legislatures around our nation as important as what is going on in Washington, D.C., they may well be more important.
Tweet of the Day
At 10 PM Pacific Time, firefighters were still fighting the blaze at the Zion AME church in Greeleyville, South Carolina. It's the seventh black church set ablaze since nine people were murdered at the historic Emanuel AME church in Charleston. It's not the first time Zion AME has burned. A suspected arsonist torched it in 1995. President Bill Clinton was on hand for the dedication of its replacement, which is still burning tonight.
On
today's Kagro in the Morning show: Back from a week of camping!
Greg Dworkin summarized the top news we missed last week. SC's Confederate flag seems to be on the brink of coming down. Christie's in, but still toast. Trump dumped. Obama bumps up in latest polls. Republicans in disarray. WaPo takes up gun-related data journalism. A closer look at the dynamics of South Carolina's last days of political struggle with the Confederate flag.
Armando then joins us in recapping and discussing last week's SCOTUS action.
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