Often politicians join community activists in standing up for issues that impact their community. However, not since the Civil Rights era have top elected officials sat down in solidarity with Americans demanding swift change in legislation. Last week, Congressional Democrats actually took to the floor of the House of Representatives for 24 hours in order to be acknowledged and recognized for their stance on adjusting the rules regarding background check for gun buyers and with that change added that individuals banned from boarding and flying on airplanes will also be restricted from walking into a gun show or going online to begin or add to an arsenal of weapons.
Rep. John Lewis (D-GA-5) who led the e sit-in demanded that Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) keep the House in session through its scheduled recess for the purposes of talking about gun control.
The Speaker was not impressed.
He described the sit-down demonstration as a “distraction.”
Rep. John Lewis, a Democrat who pretty much could write a book about distractions from his experience walking peacefully alongside Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma, Alabama when southern sheriffs and their henchmen beat him to a pulp and almost ended his life five decades ago.
On a weekend news program the hero and survivor joked saying sitting down in 2016 was easy, “it was getting back up” that gave him a bit of a fight.
That he could even inject levity after sitting to convince Republicans that they should give an ear to reason is something for the history books.
Rep. Lewis had plenty of support in this millennia. As a matter of fact, more than 1,000 private citizens showed solidarity outside, sitting out the 24-hour, overnight protest in Washington D.C.
Sen. Bernie Sanders even walked into the House to show solidarity with the Democratic demonstrators.
The voting public should be aware that elected representatives of both parties are now in recess until July. 5 and will soon be going off to a seven week vacation.
In order to amplify the protest perhaps, all Americans should either stage a national stand up or sit down campaign.
Already there is a chorus of voices begging that the gun-loving advocates allow every delegate and party member to pack a pistol when they attend the GOP convention in Cleveland, Ohio.
Not that there is any chance of danger or violence as the presumptive presidential party candidate Donald Trump has already assured Americans in speeches that had everyone in the Pulse Club in Orlando carried a weapon there would be far less casualties and only the gunman would be killed.
That kind of logic could best be tested from July 18-21.
While some contend that the sit-down protest was staged to appease the LGBT community, a plethora of disfranchised Americans victimized by gun violence also ponder why the gesture was not applied after a deranged maniac walked into a South Carolina church and cold-bloodedly gunned down members of the congregation after they welcomed him into fellowship. Many of those also question why some or all of those same politicians neither stood nor sat after a wannabe cop working as a security guard in Florida pumped bullets into a teenager named Trayvon Martin and walked free without punishment.
That individual said he stood his ground and the young victim paid the highest price any American can ever pay, he died.
Sandy Hook, Connecticut, Columbine, Colorado, San Bernadino, California and the unknowing students and teachers at Virginia Tech only skims the surface of the now regular breaking news broadcasts that alerts each and every one of a mentally ill or enraged citizen who resorted to using gun violence against innocent people.
Brooklyn Congresswoman Yvette Clarke spoke to the issue of revision of the gun laws that owners claim as constitutional and permitted by provisions of the second amendment.
To believe that the founding fathers actually endorsed an initiative to permit every American to hoard enough ammunition akin to an arsenal able to outfit a private militia seems an absurd idea for forward-thinking politicians of that era.
Cong. Rangel said the moral stance by his party affiliates did the right thing last Thursday. They sat down for change and some of us pray that the GOP will stand up for something more than resistance.
The anthem of peaceful resistance echoed through the halls of justice following the sit-in and it sounded just as earnest — “We Shall Overcome.”
Catch You On The Inside!
