Honor King: End Racism! — Poster of the Week

Honor King: End racism! Artist Unkn own Offset, 1968 Memphis, Tennessee 10721

While the indictment of Trump is an effort to safeguard our fragile democracy, Republican lawmakers in Memphis yesterday took a huge step backwards when they expelled two Black lawmakers for exercising their first amendment rights to peacefully protest. Justin Jones, D-Nashville, Justin Pearson, D-Memphis, and Gloria Johnson, D-Knoxville, were advocating for gun control following last week’s mass shooting at a Memphis elementary school which killed 3 adults and 3 nine-year old children. Johnson, who is white, avoided expulsion by one vote. Jones and Pearson, both Black, were expelled from the republican controlled Tennessee House of Representatives. Democracy in Action? Call it what it is: systemic racism in action. And this took place the week of the 57th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. In Memphis. CSPG's Poster of the Week was made for a memorial march on April 8, 1968, four days after Martin Luther King's assassination. This poster was carried by Reverend James Lawson, who donated the poster to CSPG. To see the marchers holding it visit https://nmaahc.si.edu/object/nmaahc_2011.16.5 Honor King: End Racism!

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Resources: "A Public Lynching": Justin Jones, Black Tennessee Lawmaker, Responds to Expulsion from State House | Democracy Now Lawrence: Historic Ousting of Black TN Dems Demands Nations Full Attention | MSNBC