John Lewis’ Message to Justice Scalia: Voting rights are ‘what people died for & bled for’

John Lewis’ Message to Justice Scalia: Voting rights are ‘what people died for & bled for’

By Victor Trammell

     It can go without saying that Congressman John Lewis, (D) Georgia, is a legendary hero of the centuries-old struggle for civil rights in America.

    Rep. Lewis was one of the demonstrators who marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama on March 7, 1965.

    The voting rights demonstration became known as “b****y Sunday.” Rep. Lewis and other participants in the voting rights march were savagely beaten by Alabama State Troopers.

    Yesterday at the Supreme Court, oral arguments were raised over the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. During the heated debate, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia referred to the 1965 bill as a “perpetuation of racial entitlement.” Rep. John Lewis and other civil rights leaders attended the Supreme Court debate.

    In an interview on MSNBC’s Politics Nation with Al Sharpton, Rep. Lewis decried Justice Scalia’s comments as “appalling.” During the interview, Rep. Lewis quoted:

    “It was unreal, unbelievable, almost shocking, for a member of the court to use certain language. I can see politicians and even members of Congress–it is just appalling to me….It is an affront to all of what the civil rights movement stood for, what people died for, what people bled for, and those of us who marched across that bridge 48 years ago, we didn’t march for some racial entitlement.  (MSNBC).