Today on Boston Public Radio:
The Rev. Cornell William Brooks discussed the Black faith leaders who engaged in a hunger strike for voting rights, and shared why he likens the Capitol attack on Jan. 6, 2021, to the Confederate attack at Fort Sumter. Brooks is the Hauser professor of the practice of nonprofit organizations and professor of the practice of public leadership and social justice at the Harvard Kennedy School. Brooks is the former president and CEO of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, a civil rights attorney and an ordained minister.
We then asked listeners about failed voting rights legislation, and what it means for both midterm elections and the 2024 presidential election.
Simon van Zuylen-Wood talked about "Hillbilly Elegy" author J.D. Vance’s run for United States Senate, and his decision to tag himself as a conservative outsider. Van Zuylen-Wood is a freelance journalist based in New York and has recently written about the radicalization of J.D. Vance.
Evan Horowitz updated us on how Massachusetts could bring in more than $1 billion in revenue if voters approve a ballot question to implement a “Millionaire’s Tax” in the state. Horowitz is executive director of the Center for State Policy Analysis at Tufts.
The Revs. Irene Monroe and Emmett G. Price III shared their thoughts on the fate of the Democrats’ voting rights bill, and reflected on the life and legacy of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Monroe is a syndicated religion columnist and the Boston voice for Detour’s African American Heritage Trail. Price is founding pastor of Community of Love Christian Fellowship in Allston and the inaugural dean of Africana studies at Berklee College of Music. Together, they host the “All Rev’d Up” podcast at GBH.
We then continued our conversation with listeners on the state of voting rights.
We ended the show by replaying our conversation with New Yorker writer Jelani Cobb on his book “The Essential Kerner Commission Report,” which places the 1968 Kerner Commission Report in today’s political context.
