Tonight in New York City, the Lunar New Year meets Black History month as the Asian American Legal Defense Fund honors legendary Freedom Rider, civil rights activist and long-time Georgia Congressman John Lewis.
It’s one of those diversity moments we need to note whenever we can because it shows there really is a broad civil rights agenda out there.
In fact, Lewis, speaking at Modesto Junior College in California two weeks ago, made it clear that the issue, the movement has evolved. “It’s not just civil rights,” Lewis declared. “It’s human rights.”
We need to remember the diversity inherent in Lewis’ “come together” language, especially now when our individual competing interests politically can often seem on a collision course.
We’re seeing it now on the issue of immigration.
Surely, the Black-dominated civil rights establishment is behind the push for reform. But with President Obama winning the majority of the vote, there are some rumblings from the African-American community on whether the president spending political capital on immigration does anything at all for African-Americans.
A survey of Black talk radio around the country can find sentiments not much different from right-wing talk programs on the issue.
