In Washington, D.C., several civil rights leaders, including Reverends Jesse Jackson and William Barber, were arrested Wednesday at a nonviolent protest outside the U.S. Senate as they demanded West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin and other lawmakers abolish the filibuster to pass a major voting rights bill and other legislation. Their protest came a day after all 50 Republican senators blocked the For the People Act from advancing. The bill would restore the protections of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which was gutted by the Supreme Court eight years ago. This is Reverend William Barber speaking ahead of his arrest.
Rev. William Barber II: “Yesterday’s party-line vote to kill debate on the For the People Act certified what we already knew: McConnell’s obstructionist caucus as politically mean, extreme, regressive and anti-the Constitution, anti-the very Constitution they swore to uphold.”
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