MB although it's still about a month till the actual anniversary itself. yes, it's always encouraging to see a bipartisan celebration of the great men and women who fought to extend civil rights to millions across the nation but it's worth remembering that the march on washington in 1963 was for jobs and freedom. and at a time when unemployment remains at 7.6% and 13.7% for african-americans, there's a great deal of work to be done. while speaker john boehner got a nice photo op with john lewis , perhaps a more meaningful move would be to pass legislation on behalf of minorities in this corrupt. and a good place to start is in texas where in the wake of the supreme court striking down section 4 of the voting rights ac, legislators acted quickly to put into effect a new voter i.d. law. for more on this, i'm delighted to be joined by eddie berniece johnson, a democrat from the texas . good afternoon, ma'am. it's not quite the industry as you know of that historic event. but speaker boehner wanted to make sure he was part of the celebration before congress goes on recess. am i being a bit too cynical here, or is there something a bit odd about this speaker attending this event when many of his own party's policies work against the vet people that thecivil rights movement was trying to help?
EBJ well, first, let me thank you for having me on the program today and simply say that it's almost like it's a new beginning because we, of course, needed the speaker to be there to probably feel some of the feelings that all of us felt, especially those of us who were quite aware of that march at that time. i was a young married woman with an infant son. and remember watching it on black and white television. but my heart and spirit was there as it was today listening to john lewis and thinking about my native stateof texas and how there is a new push to push us away from the polls instead of working on us about the vote.
MB that's what i was going to come to because the supreme court 's decision on the voting rights act immediately following that, texas attorney general greg abbott said that a 2011 voter i.d. law won that had been struck down by a washington court for placing severe burdens on poor and racial minorities , would immediately go into effect.
EBJ yes, within an hour or two after the ruling was announced. it was almost like gotcha. you know, we're going to keep you from voting. and actually, when this bill was passed into law last year around june, i started to work with people then to get the information out. knowing full well that if the leadership we had at that time continued to be leadership at this time which it is, we could look forward to them trying to enforce as much of it as they possibly could. we've never objected to having identification to register to vote and to vote. we've never. but the kind of burdensome problems that they're making makes it a lot more difficult.
MB yeah.
EBJ so it's obviously an intent to it.
MB yes, absolutely. congresswoman, spoke yesterday at the house hearing on race and justice in america. i'd like our viewers to hear a little of what you said.
EBJ when we talk about the civil rights movement , i think it's just beginning. it seems to me that we've made strides, but we've made strides to the point where somebody else noticed we were making them and now we've got to stop them.
MB what did you mean by that, ma'am? is.
EBJ well, like voting. you know, the one thing that we've learned that they forgotten we know and that's how to read. years ago, they could pull a lot of games on us but now we can read the rules and we know how to follow them. we also know when they're unfair because we also know how to think. we have more people educated, more people interested in voting and we also know who we want to vote for. you know, they have cracked and packed different districts to keep our votes from counting but we do a study every year who votes which way. and we want the people that will listen to us and that represent us to be available so they can win some of the seats.
MB representative eddie berniece johnson, thank you so much, ma'am.
