Voting Rights Under Attack
Floor Speech
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Mrs. McBATH. Madam Speaker, first, I would like to thank Congresswoman and Chairwoman Joyce Beatty of the Congressional Black Caucus for her astounding leadership and really being on the front lines for the Congressional Black Caucus, and I want to thank our colleague, Ritchie Torres, for his leadership tonight on the floor for our Special Order hour for voting rights.
I really want to thank each and every one of my colleagues, whether they be members of the Congressional Black Caucus or just colleagues here in this body who have stood and fought for everyone's right to exercise their right to vote, to exercise what is important to them in this country to be fully and freely an American. I want to thank each and every one of them because it is for that reason--those reasons-- that we are here tonight.
Madam Speaker, I rise today, like so many have done before me throughout the years, to stand for the right of every American citizen in this country to vote.
During the civil rights movement, I was the child in the stroller at the March on Washington. I know many have heard me say before that my father was president of the NAACP chapter in Illinois, and I can still picture him to this day presiding over meetings at our kitchen table in our home. Our house was always filled with volunteers, civil rights leaders, and workers as they were working on their poster boards, preparations, and getting ready for rallies and for marches as they were preparing to fight for a brighter world.
From the time that I could walk as a young child, I was always marching with my family. I have joked with my colleagues over and over again that the very first song I think I really truly learned how to sing was ``We Shall Overcome'' because that is what we were singing. That is what I remember in my mind. I knew the words to that song because I knew that they had depth, and I knew they were so important to my family. Even though I was so young and I didn't understand what we were fighting for, I knew what my parents were doing was vitally important to this Nation.
I was raised by my parents to always fight for others, to fight for what is right, to stand up, to champion, to fight for the least of these, and to stand up so that every American's voice is heard and that their voice is counted.
I remember all the nights that my mother would put my sister and me in the car and we would travel all around Illinois passing out The Voice newspaper which at that time was the Illinois civil rights newspaper. I remember getting stuck in the mud at night and being out in parts of Illinois where we didn't know where we were, but my mother put us in the car and did what she believed she had to do to make sure that the American people and people of color understood the fight that was going on on their behalf whether they were taking part in it or not, but that they understood and that they knew how important it was for them to be able to exercise what was important to them as human beings and as citizens in the United States of America.
The struggle for voting rights was championed not only by my parents but was embodied by our great friend and colleague, Representative John Lewis. He inspired millions of Americans, and that is still carried on today. That is still so vitally necessary today. I live in Georgia, and Georgia has had a profound and rich history of all the American civil rights stalwarts who fought on the front lines for the very voting rights that we still talk about to this day and that we are still having to protect and champion to this day: Representative John Lewis, Martin Luther King, Jr., Coretta Scott King, Joseph Lowery, C.T. Vivian, Ralph David Abernathy, and, of course, Andrew Young.
These are the individuals who were on the front lines fighting for us-- Members of Congress African Americans--to be in this Chamber, to be in this House, to be in this body, and to represent the values and the dreams of not only people of our ilk but of the American people.
Had it not been for those individuals, as Representative Terri Sewell has mentioned, the foremothers, the forefathers, we would not be here today.
Free and fair elections are the bedrock of American democracy. That is what this democracy was founded upon.
As John Lewis used to say: ``Freedom is not a state; it is an act. . . . Freedom is the continuous action we all must take, and each generation must do its part to create an even more fair, more just society.'' Together, each and every one of us must do our part.
When I think about the fact that my father worked so hard in the civil rights movement, that my father was there in the White House with President Lyndon Baines Johnson for the signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and when I think about the fact that I am here as a Member of Congress because of the work that my forefathers and foreparents and civil rights workers and leaders and volunteers and people who just believed, just believed in what the Constitution said and meant, believed in that by exercising the right to vote, the fact that now we are still fighting for those same rights and that people live in jeopardy of having those rights taken away is unconscionable.
For every American who fought or bled or died, gave their life for people to have the right to vote, what is happening in this body, what is happening in the Senate, is unconscionable.
We are better than this. America is better than this. We have been that beacon for the world for the sense of democracy, and we must continue to be that very thing.
Across America, we are standing up.
Across America, we will lead the fight for free and fair elections.
Across America, we will lead the fight to ensure that every American has the right to make their voice heard.
Across America, we will lead the fight to create a more just society. We must. The times demand it.
Every one of us in this body was born for a time such as this, and God demands that of us at this time.
Mr. TORRES of New York. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Underwood).
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