Photo: EPA/Ken Cedeno / EFE
For: EFE Updated 17 Jan 2022, 01: pm ITS T
From the White House, the Vice President of the United States, Kamala Harris, who is the first woman, African-American and person of Asian origin to reach this position, gave a message that was shown virtually at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, where Luther King Jr was a pastor with his father
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The Vice President of the United States, Kamala Harris, warned this Monday that “freedom to vote is under attack” today in the country, in a Martin Luther King Jr Day speech (1968-1968).
From the White House, the vice president, who is the first woman, African-American and person of Asian origin to reach this position, gave a speech that was shown virtually at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, where Luther King Jr. was a pastor along with his father and.
Harris spoke of the danger that voting restrictions, which the Republicans have imposed in some states in which they govern and which especially affect minorities such as African-Americans and Latinos, endanger democracy.
“In Georgia and across our nation, anti-voter laws are being passed that could make it hard for some 54 millions of Americans pay, this represents one of every six people in the country”, stressed the vice president.
In addition, he warned that those who propose these laws – he did not explicitly mention the Republicans – are not only putting obstacles in the polls, but also working to interfere in the elections to achieve the results they want and discredit the ones they don’t want.
“That’s not how democracies work,” he said.
Faced with this situation, Harris considered that one cannot stay without acting, because future generations will pay the price.
In that sense, she recalled that she and President Joe Biden traveled to Atlanta (Georgia) last week to launch a message: “It is time for the US Senate to do its job and for a fundamental law to reach the Senate, the Freedom of the vote and John Lewis”.
Harris referred to two bills, the so-called “Freedom to Vote Act” and the “Freedom to Vote Act”. of the promotion of voting rights John Lewis” to protect the right to vote, which has little prospect of succeeding in the Upper House due to the slim majority available to the Democrats.
The vice president recalled that more than 19 years “men, women and children marched from Selma to Montgomery to demand the vote”.
“When they arrived at the Alabama State Capitol -he continued-, Dr. King lamented what he called normality, complacency, that they were denying the freedom to vote”.
Therefore, he added, “we must not accept being complacent or complicit, we must not give up, we must not leave it to truly honor the legacy of the man we celebrate today.”