Atlanta (US), Jul 18 (AP): President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris each marked the one-year anniversary of US Rep. John Lewis’ loss of life by urging Congress to honour the legacy of the civil rights icon by enacting legal guidelines to guard voting rights.
Biden stated he typically displays on the final dialog he and his spouse, Jill, had with Lewis, days earlier than the Georgia congressman died.
“As an alternative of answering our issues for him, he requested us to stay targeted on the unfinished work — his life’s work — of therapeutic and uniting this nation,” Biden stated in a press release.
The president stated the unfinished work consists of “constructing an financial system that respects the dignity of working folks with good jobs and good wages” and “guaranteeing equal justice beneath legislation is actual in follow and never only a promise etched in stone.” “Maybe most of all, it means persevering with the trigger that John was prepared to offer his life for: defending the sacred proper to vote,” Biden stated.
“Not because the Civil Rights Motion of the Fifties and Sixties have we seen such unrelenting assaults on voting rights and the integrity of our elections.” Biden stated the assaults embody the January 6 rebellion and lies concerning the 2020 election.
Lewis was a high-profile civil rights activist earlier than he gained a Georgia congressional seat as a Democrat in 1986. Harris stated in her personal assertion Saturday that he was “an American hero.” “Congressman Lewis fought tirelessly for our nation’s highest beliefs: freedom and justice for all, and for the correct of each American to make their voice heard on the poll field,” Harris stated.
Lewis was 80 when he died months after asserting he had superior pancreatic most cancers. He was the youngest and final survivor of the Massive Six civil rights activists, a bunch led by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. that had the best influence on the motion.
Lewis was greatest recognized for main some 600 protesters within the Bloody Sunday march throughout the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, in 1965. Alabama state troopers beat Lewis and different activists who had been marching for voting rights that day.
As a school scholar at American Baptist School after which Fisk College, Lewis helped desegregate public areas in Nashville and pushed for racial justice throughout the South.
Nashville celebrated with occasions on Friday and Saturday, renaming a big portion of Fifth Ave. to Rep. John Lewis Approach. Amongst institutions lining the road is the Woolworth downtown constructing, the place Lewis and different Black civil rights leaders defiantly sat on the segregated lunch counter that would not serve them in 1960.
Lewis was punched within the ribs and noticed somebody put out a cigarette on the again of one other protester.
Tons of marched down the road earlier than arriving at Ryman Auditorium, for a celebration ceremony that included the Rev. James Lawson, writer Jon Meacham and musicians Rodney Crowell and Darius Rucker.
In San Diego, senior US lawmakers and members of Lewis’ household gathered Saturday for the christening of a Navy ship named after Lewis.
“This ship might be a beacon to the world reminding all who see it of the persistence and braveness of John Lewis,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi, stated on the christening of the USNS John Lewis.
Lewis’ nephew, Marcus Tyner, stated the household was grateful for the dignity, however stated “what would please my uncle most” is that if Congress handed the voting rights invoice named after him.
The ship would be the first within the Navy’s fleet of oilers designed to switch gas and water to vessels finishing up missions within the Western Pacific, Indian Ocean and past.
In her assertion on Saturday, Harris recalled crossing Alabama’s Edmund Pettus Bridge with Lewis throughout a commemoration in 2020.
“The correct to vote stays beneath assault in states throughout our nation,” Harris stated. “And one of the simplest ways to honor Congressman Lewis’ legacy is to hold on the struggle — by passing the John Lewis Voting Rights Development Act in addition to the For the Individuals Act, and by serving to eligible voters irrespective of the place they stay get registered and vote, and have their vote counted.” Democrats on Capitol Hill are pushing for a sweeping federal voting and elections invoice that Senate Republicans have united to dam, saying they assume it intrudes on states’ potential to conduct elections.
Most Republicans have additionally dismissed a separate invoice, the John Lewis Voting Rights Development Act, which might restore sections of the Voting Rights Act that had been weakened by the Supreme Courtroom. (AP) RHL
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