Elizabeth Warren likens Black Lives Matter to civil rights movement
Senator Elizabeth Warren likened the Black Lives Matter movement to the mid-20th century fight for civil rights and called for a bevy of police and economic reforms in a speech in Boston on Sunday.
Speaking at the Edward Kennedy Institute, Warren said Kennedy’s fight for Civil Rights reforms concentrated on a trifecta that’s still important today.
“In the same way that the tools of oppression were woven together, a package of civil rights laws came together to protect black people from violence, to ensure access to the ballot box, and to build economic opportunity,’’ Warren said of the civil rights movement. “Or to say it another way, these laws made three powerful declarations: Black lives matter. Black citizens matter. Black families matter.’’
Warren said each of those three declarations have been undermined in recent years. She pointed to prominent police violence against black citizens, the gutting of the Voting Rights Act and voter ID laws, and the disparate impact of the housing crisis on African-Americans.
“We have made important strides forward. But we are not done yet. And now, it is our time,’’ she said. “It comes to us to once again affirm that black lives matter, that black citizens matter, that black families matter.
Warren proposed a few solutions to address the three issues she highlighted. She advocated for more diverse police forces and the use of body cameras, an end to state-level restrictive voting laws, and the end of predatory lending practices that “systematically strip wealth out of communities of color.’’ The latter issue has been her calling card since her days as a Harvard professor.
The speech drew praise from DeRay Mckesson, an activist with Black Lives Matter.
“Warren, better than any political leader I’ve yet heard, understands the protests as a matter of life or death,’’ he told The Washington Post’s Wes Lowery.
Gallery: A look back at the events in Ferguson
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