This month marks the 57th anniversary of the Civil rights march from
Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. The peaceful demonstration for voting
rights met with police violence galvanized young civil rights leaders
to run for office, including the late congressman John Lewis.
Jeff Bennett reports on the legacy of that generation and a new era
of lawmakers driven from protest to the halls of power.
I will not take off my activist hat to be in Congress. Congresswoman
Cori Bush calls herself a political fist. Part politician, part activist.
You need that outside game, which is the activist.
And you need the inside game being that person seated right here
in Congress. She arrived at the Capitol in 2021 insurgent progressive,
having ended the political dynasty that had represented her ST Louis
district for over half a century.
The history making win was long in the making for Bush, whose political
ascent began in 2014. We will when her community became the epicenter
of the fight against police violence.
Walk me through your journey from organizer to lawmaker from protester
to elected politician. What was that? Like? I had no idea about what
Even an activist was.
But Michael Brown was killed. The police killing of Michael Brown
ignited nights of protests in Ferguson that Bush helped lead sparking
the Black lives matter Movement and inspiring her and others to run
for elected office. They're moving not only from direct action in
the streets to actually trying to grab hold of the reins of power.
Glaude Jr is the chair of the African American Studies Department
at Princeton University.
He says. Bush follows a tradition dating back to the civil rights
movement. Historically, this hyphen it this activist politician role.
How has it shown up over time? And how is it evolved activists from
across the wide spectrum of black politics, getting together to articulate
a black agenda?
And the result was this extraordinary increase in the election or
of what we call BEOS Black elected officials, activists worked to
register African Americans to vote in the Jim Crow South.
And took that cause to Washington with Dr Martin Luther King Jr personally
appealing to President Lyndon Johnson for the Voting Rights Act of
1965 also requested of the president that as soon as the bill is
signed that
Immediately. Federal examiners would be placed in certain key counters
where we have faced a great deal of resistance Young African Americans
who had organized with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
or snick.
And who campaigned alongside Dr King for the Voting Rights Act now
turned from casting a ballot to getting their names on one
realized that this is a rough road like Shirley Chisholm in 1968,
the first black woman elected to Congress and to run in a major presidential
primary. What's wrong with my running for president of this country
and the late Congressman John Lewis, known for giving a speech at
the march on Washington?
And who was famously beaten and bloodied by police in 1965 as he
crossed Alabama's Edmund Pettus Bridge to peacefully demonstrate
for voting rights, an incident Lewis marked every year until his
death in 2020.
History reminds us that on March 7th 1965
We love America so dearly.
We were ready to die for her. Lewis took his fight to Congress buildings
mean it is base. It is downright low. Down in 2016. He rallied dozens
of Democrats to action.
After the pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando leading a sit in on
the House floor lasting some 25 hours. We're calling on the leadership
of the House to bring common sense gun control legislation to the
House floor. Bush, currently serving her first term, says she shares
Lewis's approach pulled from my toolbox as an organizer. What do
you do?
You put yourself on the line first this past August, some 11 million
Americans were behind on rent and at risk of losing their homes.
With the pandemic related pause on eviction set to expire. Bush says
she knew the feeling first hand as a single mom who had three times
been evicted.
It was just like, okay, well, we didn't get it done, so it's time
to go. I couldn't understand how human beings could allow that to
happen. She says she pulled from the toolbox, a tactic of her role
model Shirley Chisholm, who was known for saying, quote.
If they don't give you a seat at the table, Bring a folding chair.
We need the moratorium on evictions to happen today. Bush slept on
the steps of the U. S Capitol for four nights until the White House
stepped in with a temporary extension of the evictions pause.
Returning to the steps Now she reflected on what it meant. So once
the president decided to extend the eviction moratorium, did you
feel vindicated? Absolutely well.
I don't know. Necessarily. Vindicated is the word I felt happy. I
feel like my muscle grew a little because it showed that even though
people say that, you know you can't do anything, you can't move anything.
You have no power. You have no say it was unorthodox. I guess you
know what we did, Uh, it was
The people have to win. Six years after the death of Michael Brown
pushed Bush into the political arena Generation Z is making its way
into the halls of power, fueled by the police killings of George
Floyd and Brianna Taylor in 2020.
I was one of the individuals chanting Black lives matter on the streets
of New York City. Um and that is one of the main reasons why I ran
for office 23 year old she Oh, say, now in New York City Council
member said Deciding to fight for change from the inside wasn't an
easy choice. You consider yourself to be an activist or politician,
or some combination of both. There is some interviews that I had
Within the second month of running for office, and I completely rejected
this idea that I was a politician or wanting to be a politician,
but I think that was a bit of denial. I am a politician, but I'm
also you know and activists. Oh, say, two made history as the first
openly queer person to represent his Brooklyn district.
And the first from Gen. Z. And while he says he draws from the contributions
of icons like John Lewis and Shirley Chisholm, he says he's equally
inspired by his queer predecessors and by the people around him,
who in particular inspires me and my main answer to that is my generation.
And that's something that really sparked and got me here was the
people that I was on the ground, protesting with
Who were leading those protests, which were a lot of young people
of color. Young black folks, of course work was done before us to
pave the way for us to do the work that we're doing now, but there's
still so much that people were trying to do to hold us back and we
still broke through. But for lawmakers like, Oh, say, and Bush
The question of translating the black lives matter Movement. Success
into law remains a challenge, which blood says is not new to this
generation. We often think think of the country as
Kind of engaging in this kind of linear progression towards a more
perfect union, And that's not quite true. It's always one step forward
23 steps backwards. If not enough. People want to focus on and you
get to hear my mouth focus on it because I am those people. Responding
to some criticism that protest tactics only distract from legislation.
Bush says she knows her voters best The people of ST Louis
Elected me with a T shirt on and with boots and says the failures
of traditional politics are what brought her to Congress in the first
place. There is a situation happening in ST Louis that needs to be
addressed. That didn't happen overnight. But you have been here for
a while, and you didn't use your power, European or the purse to
be able to affect that.
So now I'm here. You built me If you don't like how I'm doing it.
You should have fixed it before Corey got here. A new generation
of activists in politics, taking lessons from leaders past and carving
their own way towards change.