In a statement tonight, Martin Luther King III, the oldest son of the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., slammed moderate Democratic Sens. Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin, saying “they have let down the United States of America. They were given countless opportunities to protect our most sacred franchise, but in the end, they sided with a Jim Crow relic over the voting rights of Black and Brown communities.”
“They ignored the call of millions of Americans, West Virginians, and Arizonans who know that restoring the Voting Rights Act is an imperative for the health of our democracy. Like I said from the Frederick Douglass Bridge on the holiday to honor my father: no bridge will be strong enough to hold the weight of this failure,” he said in the statement.
He continued: “Despite this setback, we are going to keep fighting for voting rights legislation. This fight marks a new chapter in the King legacy and we will not accept failure. We have set extraordinary groundwork for change and the country will not let this fight end. Ending the filibuster is part of the national conversation in a way it’s never been before — people now know the filibuster is not etched in the Constitution, but rather a tool of suppression, and the voting rights secured by my father are under attack.”
