Martin Luther King III: ‘No More Empty Words’ on Voting Rights

By Tadi Abedje Published: January 17, 2022

Martin Luther King III: ‘No More Empty Words’ on Voting Rights

Martin Luther King III, speaks during a news conference in Washington, Monday, Jan. 17, 2022. King's eldest son criticized Biden and Congress as a whole on Monday for failing to pass voting rights legislation, even as 19 Republican-led states have made it harder to vote in response to former President Donald Trump’s false claims about election-rigging. “You were successful with infrastructure, which is a great thing -- but we need you to use that same energy to ensure that all Americans have the same unencumbered right to vote,” Martin Luther King III said. ( AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

In Summary

In a voting rights rally, the oldest son of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called out Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema for their support of the filibuster.

On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, his oldest son, Martin Luther King III, is using this day to demand that President Joe Biden and senators pick up their efforts on passing voting rights legislation and get rid of the filibuster, according to The Hill.

He, along with his wife Arndrea Waters King and their daughter Yolanda Renee King, joined hundreds of activists and residents in a walk across the Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge in Washington, D.C. In their words, the bridge epitomizes President Biden and Congress approving the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill.

“If you can deliver an infrastructure bill for bridges, you can deliver voting rights for Americans. If you do not, there’s no bridge in this nation that can hold the weight of that failure,” King III said.

He called out Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema for using the filibuster to raise the debt ceiling, but not getting rid of it when it comes to protecting voting rights. King III spoke about the time when his father wrote his famous “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” which states that the white moderate was the biggest stumbling block for freedom for Black Americans.

“No matter what happens tomorrow, we must keep the pressure on and say, ‘No more empty words. Don’t tell us what you believe in, show us with your votes.’ History will be watching what happens tomorrow, Black and Brown Americans will be watching what happens tomorrow. In 50 years, students will read about what happens tomorrow and know whether our leaders had the integrity to do the right thing.”