The annual Remembrance event at the Edmund Pettus Bridge, the site marking the brutal assault in 1965 against non-violent civil rights protesters by the police, took place last Sunday. The special occasion serves as a reminder of what the Civil rights movement entailed on that long arduous, bloody road toward the passage of the Civil Rights Act.
This year, the marking also served to help explain the overwhelming voter support that black Americans gave to Joe Biden in South Carolina and on SuperTuesday. Black Americans view the re-election of Trump as a significant step backwards toward those terrifying years of civil unrest and outright discrimination which the Edmund Pettus Bridge so vividly represents.
And their fears rise out of a real basis in fact. They view Trump’s his authoritarian leanings and hatred toward people .of color as a huge red flag that discrimination likely would become worse if he got another four years..
For Trump’s record in this area is unnerving. In the last three years, Trump has fueled the rise of racial bigotry. And violence against minorities has risen as a result. He has enacted unconscionable and repugnant policies on our southwest border against refugee families and children. He supports voter suppression which inordinately wrests the right to vote from largely minority populations. He and Attorney General Bill Barr are distorting the rule of law at the Justice Department. These actions drain minorities’ already justifiably weak confidence that justice will be fair in courtrooms and jails throughout the country.
Granted life for white Americans under the Trump reign has been hair raising as well, creating a deep existential crisis about the damage Trump is doing to the country and hurting Americans in the process.. But whites are not worrying about police brutality or the degradation of their our civil rights. But for people of color, their concerns with Trump are more immediate and more critical.
And so just prior to the South Carolina primary, Rep. Jim Clyburn made a fateful decision. He surely had assessed all of these factors before deciding to endorse Joe Biden In his endorsement, he reminded black voters that Biden was a trusted politician and friend to African Americans who Obama obviously trusted as well and he could win.. And secondly, he stated that even in the worst of the upheaval in the fight for civil rights, he was never as worried as he is today.
And black Americans heard these words in South Carolina and ultimately in many states all over the South. They smartly and astutely decided to go with the candidate who they believed had the greatest chance of being elected.
Because it was people of color who had the greatest to lose if Trump prevailed in November, it was extremely fitting to have black Americans in the South,o take charge of this Biden coalescing. And they came through with an avalanche of votes for Biden which clarified the way forward..
An now we just need Bernie to acquiesce for party unity.