The 50th anniversary of the March On Washington has given the country a chance to reflect on how far we have come, and how far we still have left to go toward achieving Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream.
In today’s NOW, Alex Wagner discussed the great reluctance for some conservatives to recognize the reality that we have not solved all of the racial problems in America, and often to label any discussion of the subject as “race baiting.” Earlier this year, Justice Roberts demonstrated this sort of thinking in his opinion justifying the Supreme Court’s evisceration of the Voting Rights Act when he wrote, “the conditions that originally justified these measures no longer characterize voting in the covered jurisdictions.” As we have seen in the subsequent months, there are many in said jurisdictions who would beg to differ.
Julian Bond, chairman emeritus of the NAACP, and Bryan Stevenson of the Equal Justice Initiative joined host Alex Wagner to discuss the importance of conveying the lack of racial equity to Republicans. Bond noted this continued denial was evident even in today’s events commemorating the march, noting “what’s really telling is the podium behind me today, how many Republicans will be there…They asked a long list of Republicans to come, and to a man and woman they all said no…The fact that they seem to want to get black votes…they’re not going to get them this way.”
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