Civil rights leader rips Biden-Harris: 'Progressives hijacked the rich legacy' of our movement
The Democrats' 'voting rights' bill is not the Black community's top priority, he says
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Philadelphia-born civil rights leader Bob Woodson criticized President Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and the progressive wing of the Democratic Party for "hijacking" the movement he helped lead in the 1960s.
Woodson told "The Ingraham Angle" on Friday that the election federalization bill named after fellow civil rights leader John Lewis is not about civil rights or the betterment of the Black community as Biden and others claim.
Vice President Kamala Harris. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky) (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)
He told host Raymond Arroyo that Harris tarnished the movement's legacy and bashed America when she told an interviewer that the United States should "watch how can we talk to other countries about human rights abuses — 'autocracies' — if we in our own country see an erosion of the rights that have been invested in the American people."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"It's part of the whole process that progressives have hijacked the rich legacy of the civil rights movement and really using it as a bludgeon against the country," said Woodson, after Arroyo asked if Harris was equating the United States with Communist China.
Chinese President Xi Jinping. (AP Photo/Andy Wong, File)
"And as long as they can keep Black America in a constant state of agitation, anger and resentment, it means they can easily control them. In other words, they're willing to sacrifice Black bodies for Black votes, even as they hijack the civil rights movement."
The election federalization bill named after Lewis, which has been stymied by moderate Democrats averse to abolishing the filibuster precedent, is nowhere near the top of the Black community's collective priorities, he continued.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}MSNBC host and Harlem, N.Y.-based activist Al Sharpton, right, introduces President Joe Biden in North Charleston, S.C. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
"They're talking about voting rights as the most important issue to Black America," he said. "That's not true. It may be for some elites who profit from it, but every five minutes of every day a child is shot in America, and four times that number of those children are Black," he said of crime waves in cities including his hometown.
"Some of these same murders and are occurring in cities that have been run by Black politicians over the past 50 years," Woodson added. "[If] racism were the sole culprit, then why are Blacks failing in institutions run by their own people? Why are they failing in political systems where all the control is in the hands of Black politicians?"
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"So the way you can avoid having to address this dilemma … is what we must address. And concentrating on voting rights is a deflection away from that reality and prevents us from coming up with solutions that the Woodson Center has been promoting and will continue to promote."