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yolanda renee king
'Sixty Years Since the March on Washington and We Are Still Demanding Jobs and Freedom'
'Our legacy of resistance & building never ends'
Aug 26, 2023
Tens of thousands of Americans converged on Washington Saturday to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, a turning point in the 1960s U.S. civil rights movement at which Martin Luther King Jr gave his galvanizing "I have a dream" speech.
Organizers say today's march was not a commemoration but a continuation of the demands made in 1963.
Martin Luther King Jr.'s only grandchild Yolanda Renee King, 15, told the gathering that if she could speak to her grandfather today, she would say, "I am sorry we still have to be here to rededicate ourselves to finishing your work."
"Sixty years ago, Dr. King urged us to struggle against the triple evils of racism, poverty, and bigotry," she said. "Today, racism is still with us. Poverty is still with us. And now gun violence has come for our places of worship, our schools, and our shopping centers."
"When people say my generation is cynical, we say cynicism is a luxury we cannot afford," she said. "I believe that my generation will be defined by action, not apathy."
“We have made progress, over the last 60 years, since Dr. King led the March on Washington,” said Alphonso David, president and CEO of the Global Black Economic Forum. “Have we reached the mountaintop? Not by a longshot.”
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'Step Up or Get Out of the Way,' Say Organizers Ahead of June 11 March for Our Lives
Hundreds of protests against gun violence—and lawmakers' inaction—will take place in cities across the U.S. and abroad.
Jun 10, 2022
Amid seemingly intractable legislative inertia after the latest of thousands of U.S. mass shootings, youth-led activists are set to reprise the 2018 March for Our Lives protest against gun violence and congressional inaction with events in Washington, D.C. and hundreds of cities and towns in the United States and abroad this Saturday, June 11.
"The 'solutions' of arming teachers, bulletproof doors, all that stuff: It's nonsense."
Swiftly organized in the wake of last month's mass murder of 19 children and two teachers at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas and the racist massacre of 10 people at a Buffalo, New York supermarket, the second iteration of March for Our Lives is expected to draw hundreds of thousands of demonstrators, including at least 50,000 to the main protest at the Washington Monument on the National Mall.
"We're putting our foot down, and we're saying we had enough of it. The 'solutions' of arming teachers, bulletproof doors, all that stuff: It's nonsense," March for Our Lives national coordinator Serena Rodrigues, 23, told The Washington Post. "It's time for lawmakers to step up or get out of the way."
\u201cThe world wants change. On June 11, we\u2019re marching to demand it.\u201d— March For Our Lives \u262e\ufe0f (@March For Our Lives \u262e\ufe0f) 1654797601
Speakers at Saturday's Washington, D.C. demonstration will include March for Our Lives co-founders David Hogg and X Gonzalez, who survived the 2018 massacre of 17 students and staff at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida; the son of a victim of the Buffalo supermarket shooting; Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.); American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten; and Yolanda Renee King, the granddaughter of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., according to a statement from event organizers.
Now a student at Harvard University, Hogg--who's faced right-wing harassment, including by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who called Parkland and other mass shootings false-flag operations by gun-grabbing Democrats--said he's spending his college summer break meeting with lawmakers to press for gun law reform.
"I'm tired of being here. I want to be a college student," he said during Wednesday's U.S. House Oversight Committee gun violence hearing. "I want to go out and have fun and do my job and be a young person that's enjoying my life and not having to be doing the job of what our senators should be doing right now."
\u201cThis Saturday, we\u2019re marching to continue the dreams for Lexi and everyone else lost to gun violence.\n\nIt\u2019s past time for action.\u201d— March For Our Lives \u262e\ufe0f (@March For Our Lives \u262e\ufe0f) 1654776900
In the four years since the first March for Our Lives, there have been more than 100 school shootings and over 170,000 firearm deaths in the United States.
It is estimated that at least one million people in the United States and around the world took part in the March 24, 2018 March For Our Lives, including up to 800,000 demonstrators who attended the main protest in Washington, D.C.
To find a nearby March for Our Lives, click here.
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'No Celebration Without Legislation': King Family Leads Voting Rights March
"I will not accept empty promises in pursuit of my father's dream," said Martin Luther King III.
Jan 17, 2022
With the Democratic Party on the verge of failure in Congress, the family of Martin Luther King Jr. on Monday joined with other civil rights advocates and faith leaders in Washington, D.C. to demand lawmakers pass national voting rights legislation.
The MLK Day action comes amid a wave of voter suppression efforts advanced by Republican-controlled state legislatures and ongoing obstruction from right-wing Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) to change the rules of the filibuster--the Senate's 60-vote threshold rule that critics have dubbed a "Jim Crow relic" used to block key democracy reforms.
The event comes just ahead of a planned effort by Senate Democrats to advance a House-approved bill that combines the Freedom to Vote Act and John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer will attempt to use a procedural workaround to overcome GOP opposition, but that will only be possible if Manchin and Sinema end their objections to a filibuster carve-out.
\u201cThis #MLKDay, I will not accept empty promises in pursuit of my father's dream. \n\nI do not want to see photo ops of elected officials if they are not willing to put voting rights over the filibuster. \n\nToday is a day of service and action.\n\nCongress must #DeliverForVotingRights.\u201d— Martin Luther King III (@Martin Luther King III) 1642428001
The Deliver for Voting Rights campaign, the group behind Monday's march, states that Congress must seize the "historic opportunity" to protect voting rights.
"From the Civil War to the Jim Crow era, the filibuster has blocked popular bills to stop lynching, end poll taxes, and fight workplace discrimination," the campaign says. "Now it's being used to block voting rights. The weaponization of the filibuster is racism cloaked in procedure and it must go."
"There's no time to wait," they added. "We honor Dr. King with action."
\u201cToday, we honor my father & the #MLKLegacy by turning out in Washington, D.C. to call on @POTUS & the Senate to eliminate the filibuster & pass the voting rights legislation our democracy needs. \n\nThere is still time to join our fight this #MLKDay! \nhttps://t.co/4b9Hwyp8nG\u201d— Martin Luther King III (@Martin Luther King III) 1642427299
Damon Hewitt, president and executive director of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law--one of the partners of the voting rights campaign--rejected a "sanitized, watered-down recollection of Dr. King" that "is wholly divorced from the reality of his life" and stressed that the slain rights leader's "service was about activism--an engaged leadership that brought our country closer to its stated ideals."
"Dr. King's activism taught us that those who care about freedom must take action to shake loose equality from whatever stands in the way, including cynicism and complacency with the status quo," said Hewitt. "In that spirit, and on this day of remembrance, we will redouble our efforts to defend voting rights and save our democracy."
After a morning "Peace March" kicking off from the Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge, event organizers were set to hold a noon press conference with speakers including Drum Major Institute president Arndrea Waters King, Poor People's Campaign co-chair Rev. Liz Theoharis, and Black Voters Matter co-founder LaTosha Brown.
\u201cProtect voting rights. \nExpand voting rights. \n#DeliverForVotingRights.\u201d— Just Democracy (@Just Democracy) 1642431712
In a statement Monday, Brown referenced MLK's remark that "voting rights are the foundation stone of political action" and his legacy "inextricably tied to his lifelong dedication to protecting Black voting rights."
"There is a cruel hypocrisy that, today, the United States Senate has taken a vacation day to acknowledge Dr. King's legacy while two critical voting rights bills--the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act--languish on the Senate floor," said Brown. "Even when Dr. King's children have called for this to be a day on, not off. Martin Luther King III has said there can be 'no celebration without legislation.' And Bernice King asked us to use this day to advocate for changing the filibuster to pass voting rights legislation. And so we are."
Despite some "incredible progress over the years," Brown lamented recent "dangerous Supreme Court decisions, a wave of state-level voter restrictions, and Senate inaction--particularly from Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema--[that] threaten to turn back the clock on election freedom and our ability as a community to build power and make gains economically and with criminal justice reform."
"Today is not just a holiday; it's a call to action on voting rights," she added. "If Senate Majority Leader Schumer and the rest of Senate Democrats really want to honor Dr. King's legacy, then they must pass federal voting rights legislation immediately. And if the Republicans continue to perpetrate the big lie and aid in this slow-motion insurrection, the Senate Democrats must go it alone and carve out an exception to the filibuster to pass the legislation now."
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