Black Voters Matter co-founder LaTosha Brown remembers longtime Texas Democratic Congressmember Sheila Jackson Lee, who was a tireless fighter for civil rights and progressive causes throughout her three decades in the U.S. House. Jackson Lee has died at the age of 74 after announcing last month she had pancreatic cancer. Lee was an early and outspoken opponent of the disastrous and illegal invasion of Iraq, as well as an advocate for reparations to the descendants of enslaved African Americans. “She has left a legacy of service, a legacy of love,” says political organizer LaTosha Brown of Black Voters Matter. “She was someone you could always depend on.”
TRANSCRIPT
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AMY GOODMAN: And before we go, LaTosha Brown, I wanted to switch gears to ask you about the longtime Texas Democratic Congressmember Sheila Jackson Lee, who’s died at the age of 74 of pancreatic cancer. She was a tireless fighter for civil rights and progressive causes throughout her 30 years in the U.S. House. In 2002, Congressmember Jackson Lee was an early and outspoken opponent of the invasion of Iraq. She was also an impassioned advocate for reparations. This is Sheila Jackson Lee.
REP. SHEILA JACKSON LEE: Black people in America are the descendants of Africans kidnapped and transported to the United States with the explicit complicity of the U.S. government and every arm of the United States lawmaking and law enforcement infrastructure. The dehumanizing and atrocities of slavery were not isolated occurrences but mandated by federal laws that were codified and enshrined in the Constitution. The role of the federal government in supporting the institution of slavery and subsequent discrimination directed against Blacks is an injustice that must be formally acknowledged and addressed.
AMY GOODMAN: Latosha, if you can talk about the legacy of this remarkable Houston congressmember?
LATOSHA BROWN: [singing] If I can help somebody along the way, then my living has not been in vain.
You know, I’ve been thinking about her this weekend. It’s actually in this moment right now I’m feeling very full. She left a legacy of service. There was not a single time that we called her, or people that I know that were in the movement called her, and she did not respond. She has left a legacy of service, a legacy of love, that she was active, that not only when you talk about reparations, when you talk about — the reason why we have Juneteenth as a holiday is because of her. If you look at some of the pieces she’s led around economic development for small businesses and Black-owned businesses, and stalwart of literally being on the frontlines of making sure that women’s rights were protected, that she has been an amazing servant of this country. She has been an amazing servant to her district and to the state of Texas. A giant has fallen.
And so, as we lift up, I think that in that legacy, I hope that we continue the work that she did in terms of leading on reparations. That was a significant, a significant move. And she was literally relentless on it. If you’ve ever met her, if you knew her, you knew that she was someone that you could always depend on. And so, I just lift up her family in this moment, the constituents. But for all of us, she is someone that will be greatly, greatly missed.
AMY GOODMAN: LaTosha Brown, we thank you so much for being with us, co-founder of Black Voters Matter, speaking to us from Atlanta, and Jim Zogby, longtime member of the Democratic National Committee.
Next up, the International Court of Justice rules Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem is illegal. Stay with us.
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