Pinned Tweet
This isn’t about whether or not we start a fight. We’re already in a fight. This is about how we win.
We all know—and say—the names of those whose lives have been cut short with callous indifference by law enforcement. Let’s honor Aiyana Stanley-Jones, Rekia Boyd, Korryn Gaines, Sandra Bland, and Atatiana Jefferson by reforming our criminal justice system once and for all.
And there’s more. It’s time to live our values. Look at the four words etched above the Supreme Court: Equal Justice Under Law. But justice is not equal in America.
Voter suppression is just one more relic of Jim Crow, and we need to say so. That’s why I have a plan to strengthen voting in America. It starts with restoring the Voting Rights Act.
Right now, our democracy is broken. How do I know? Because Brian Kemp is sitting in @StaceyAbrams’ chair. And we are all grateful to Stacey for what she’s doing to make sure that never happens again in this country.
The federal government helped create the racial divide in this country through decades of active, state-sponsored discrimination and that means the federal government has an obligation to fix it. And I have a lot of plans for how we can begin to fix it together.
The 1994 crime bill exacerbated the mass incarceration that has locked up millions of Black men and women, many for the smallest infractions.
Government redlining meant that too often toxic waste dumps and polluting factories are located far away from white communities and right next to Black communities.
It’s time for our government to face this truth. Time for America to have a full-blown national conversation about reparations. Time to adopt H.R. 40, @JacksonLeeTX18’s reparations plan. Time to do what’s right, so our nation can begin to heal.
America was founded on principles of liberty and built on the backs of enslaved people.
And now more than ever, all of us have to embrace the lessons of Black history. The rich and powerful aren’t going to just give away their power. No, if we want power, we have to fight for it!
But even in the face of racism, hatred, bigotry and corruption—Black history teaches us how to confront this moment of challenge. Black history teaches us how to stand up when we’re told to sit down, speak out when we’re told to be silent, march on even when the road gets rough.
The rich and powerful want us to be afraid of each other, because they’re afraid of us. Afraid of the people. Afraid of seeing us stand together. Afraid that we will take up each other’s fights as our own. Afraid that they will lose their power.
Divide and conquer is an old political tactic—and it comes in all sorts of ugly flavors: Racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, xenophobic. It’s the phobic—that’s the key part. It’s all about fear. Politics based in fear.
Today our government is working great for billionaires. Working great for giant corporations. Working great for those who cheerfully suck up as much wealth as they can, and never glance back at who gets left behind.
Donald Trump didn’t create this divide and conquer system. But he wouldn’t be in power without it. After eight years of progress under President Obama, Trump’s embrace of white supremacy, white nationalism, and corruption threaten to break our democracy beyond repair.
And when Black people won the fight to end school segregation and demanded federal funding for their children’s educations, poor white children got better educations, too.
When Black civil rights warriors won the fight for voting rights, voter turnout all across the South—for Blacks and whites—skyrocketed.
So, I want to speak directly to the question on some white people’s minds when we talk about the need to address what our government has done in Black communities. The uncomfortable question of “what will this mean for me”?
To this day racism still whispers the convenient lie to some white people that if your life has problems, you should blame “them”—people who don’t look like you.
Black history is American history. And American history teaches us that racism has for generations shaped every crucial aspect of our economy and political system.
Racist politicians doubled down. They divided Black people and white people in every moment of every day of every life, using force, violence, and intimidation to oppress Blacks and to ensure that Blacks and whites would never come together to stand up against those in power.
The law had promised equal civil and legal rights for all, and its loss was another body blow to our fragile, reconstructed democracy.
In 1883, two years after the successful washerwomen’s strike and as other groups were just beginning to exercise some political muscle, the Supreme Court struck down a civil rights law that had been passed in the wake of the Civil War.
But the gains were fleeting. As the idea that Black workers and white workers could make real structural change if they fought side by side began to spark to life, an evil force was once again mobilizing against it.
Then it happened. The employers, the city council, the powerful white citizens—they all backed down. The women won!
And when the City Council threatened to intervene, the women sent a public letter to the mayor of Atlanta and said they would not back down. They went right to the heart of the matter: “We mean business.”
Black women—then and now—are no strangers to facing resistance when they fight for justice, and Black women—then and now—don’t give up easy. Even in the face of imminent violence, Black women refused to be defined by fear. So, the women of the Washing Society persisted.
The employers struck back. They warned that they would use their money and power to start their own modern industrial laundry service to replace the washerwomen permanently.
In the space of three weeks, 20 women on strike became 200 women. And 200 women on strike became 2,000 women. 2,000 became 3,000.
One day, they had enough. It was July 1881, when 20 of Atlanta’s Black washerwomen threw down their washboards, walked away from their barrels—and formed a union: The Washing Society.
By nightfall, everything was folded and stacked, ready to be dropped off the next morning when they picked up a new pile of dirty laundry. And so the cycle continued—all for less than a dollar a day.
Black women and girls found that pretty much the only work white employers allowed them to do was the work that they’d been forced to do when they had been enslaved—caring for white families. Thousands of women scratched out a living as washerwomen. The work was heavy.
I want to tell a story. The year was 1881. After the tyranny of slavery, thousands of African Americans came to Atlanta hoping to build new lives, lives full of promise.
