Sixty years ago last month, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. visited the heart of Orange County, delivering a speech at then-Chapman College, calling for an end to discrimination in voter registration, among other issues.
As the nation approaches his birthday, the Black Democrats of Orange County stand together in unity with Dr. King’s family in calling for “No celebration without legislation” and urging President Joe Biden and Congress to mark MLK Day 2022 by passing federal voting rights bills that have stalled in Congress.
In his 55-minute speech in Orange, Dr. King noted the number of Blacks who were registered to vote in America had grown from just a handful at the turn of the 20th century to 1.4 million by 1961.
“There has been some progress in the whole area of voter registration and securing the ballot on the part of the Negroes,” Dr. King said. “Far from what it ought to be, but we have seen some strides here.”
Four years later, President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965, banning the use of literacy tests, providing for federal oversight of voter registration in areas where less than 50% of the non-white population had not registered to vote and authorizing the U.S. attorney general to investigate the use of poll taxes in state and local elections.
More than 50 years later, the walls of segregation that Dr. King saw crumbling are being rebuilt.
In the wake of record numbers of Black and brown voters casting ballots to give the Democrats the White House and both chambers of Congress, conservative-led state legislatures throughout the nation introduced more than 400 anti-voting bills in 2021, passing 33.
Many of these bills closed polling centers, purged voter rolls, eliminated early voting and gerrymandered Black and brown voters into predominantly white districts. Additionally, the Supreme Court’s Brnovich v. DNC decision further gutted the Voting Rights Act.
Voting rights was a cornerstone of Dr. King’s work.
The Black Democrats of Orange County – part of the same Black and brown voters who led President Biden and congressional Democrats to victory in 2020 – call on our elected leaders to protect and restore voting rights Dr. King (and others) marched, protested, advocated and shed blood to see enacted.
In the words of Dr. King, the time to act is now:
“The fact is that we can’t afford to slow up. We have our self-respect to maintain. But even more than that, because of our love for America, because of our love for democracy, we can’t afford to slow up.”
- Black Democrats of Orange County
- Ada Briceño, Chair, Democratic Party of Orange County; Members, Democratic National Committee
- Florice Hoffman, Regional Director, California Democratic Party Region 17
- Deborah Skurnik, Regional Director, California Democratic Party Region 18
- Luis Aleman, Secretary, Democratic Party of Orange County
- Cynthia Aguirre, North Orange County Vice Chair, Democratic Party of Orange County
- Gloria Alvarado, Central Orange County Vice Chair, Democratic Party of Orange County
- Libby Frolichman, West Orange County Vice Chair, Democratic Party of Orange County
- Lara Horgan, South Orange County Vice Chair, Democratic Party of Orange County
- Gwen McNallan, President, Laguna Beach Democratic Club
- Aliso Niguel Democratic Club
- Anaheim Democrats
- Chapman University Young Democrats
- Costa Mesa Democratic Club
- Democratic Club of West Orange County
- Democratic Women of South Orange County
- Democrats for Israel-Orange County
- Democrats of Greater Irvine
- Democrats of North Orange County
- Laguna Woods Democratic Club
- Lavender Democrats OC
- Orange Coast Huddle
- Progressive Democrats of America Orange County, CA Chapter
- Seal Beach Leisure World Democratic Club
- Tri Counties Democratic Club