White House criticizes John Lewis for not honoring civil rights leaders

[babylonsister]

https://thinkprogress.org/white-house-criticizes-john-lewis-for-not-honoring-civil-rights-leaders-5384528eb3ee/?utm_source=feedly&utm_medium=webfeeds

White House criticizes John Lewis for not honoring civil rights leaders
Lewis won't join Trump for the opening of a civil rights museum.
Aaron Rupar
Dec 7, 2017, 5:08 pm


In a statement released Thursday afternoon, the Trump administration blasted Rep. John Lewis’ (D-GA) for refusing to accompany Trump to the opening of a civil right museum, suggesting it was disrespectful to civil rights leaders.

Lewis, of course, is one of the nation’s most prominent civil rights leaders.

Earlier this week, Rep. Bennie Thompson (R-MS) and Lewis — who was chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and one of the “big six” civil rights leaders — announced they would not attend President Trump’s planned visit on Saturday to the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum, characterizing his presence there as “an insult to the people portrayed in this civil rights museum.”

Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ statement about Lewis and Thompson’s snub that did not mention Lewis’ role in the civil rights movement.

“We think it’s unfortunate that these members of Congress wouldn’t join the President in honoring the incredible sacrifice civil rights leaders made to right the injustices in our history,” Sanders said.

She went on to explain that “the [civil rights] movement was about removing barriers and unifying Americans of all backgrounds.”

Lewis was one of the original Freedom Riders, a primary organizer of the March on Washington, and famously had his skull fractured while leading a civil rights march in Selma, Alabama in 1965.

By contrast, Trump has defended violent white supremacists, embraced law enforcement practices and voting rights restrictions that disproportionately and negatively impact black communities, repeatedly picked fights with black athletes who he has accused of not showing him sufficient respect, and demanded apologies from prominent African-Americans who have criticized him.

It’s not completely surprising that the Trump administration seems unfamiliar with the biography of prominent black American. During an event to commemorate Black History Month last February, Trump characterized slave-turned-abolitionist Frederick Douglass as “an example of somebody who’s done an amazing job that is being recognized more and more, I notice.” Douglass died in 1895.

more...

https://thinkprogress.org/white-house-criticizes-john-lewis-for-not-honoring-civil-rights-leaders-5384528eb3ee/?utm_source=feedly&utm_medium=webfeeds

[Afromania]

1. ...........

[Dale Neiburg]

2. Was Trump actually invited to attend?

Or did he just invite himself?

[Jarqui]

3. Trump's depth of stupidity is cemented forever in history with this attack on Lewis

[Wwcd]

4. Sure with the Supremacist in Chief as a speaker today.

No one should have attended.
Well..except trump's base.

Pisses me off.

[malaise]

5. Bwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah

That's hilarious - the racists are attacking a civil rights icon for not wanting to share a stage with a white supremacist.

[MineralMan]

6. Trump will deliver another set of inappropriate remarks on this occasion.

I guarantee it. He can do nothing else.

[dalton99a]

7. There is no depth to the depravity of this regime

[Wounded Bear]

8. I think the WH has Rep Conyers confused with somebody who gives a shit...

about their opinion.

[Gothmog]

9. No one wants to be associated with trump

I do not blame Congressman John Lewis for not wanting to be associated with trump

[spanone]

10. Fuck them, Lewis has more integrity in one hair on his head than the entire republican party.

[Grammy23]

11. Ahem. The one being disrespectful here is tRump.

His presence at this event is a slap in the face to Lewis and other Civil Rights icons. Why should they go and stand next to a guy who is such an insult to the entire movement?

[VOX]

12. How dare they. How fucking dare they.

These tRump-Nazis couldn’t give a flying rip about the civil rights struggle. They are cut from the same shitty cloth as the Southerners who lynched African Americans and bombed their churches.

This “administration” is not merely clueless, they’re completely heartless. They have no right whatsoever to knock John Lewis, who was right there on the line during the fight, taking literal blows in order to change the world’s mind.

[Old Terp]

13. I would skip my own funeral if Trump was going to be there.

The guy has to realize that most people don't want him around. Old rude, crude and lewd is not a loved and wanted figure except for his shrinking base.

[Iggo]

14. He IS a civil rights leader, President Fuckface. (n/t)