Declaration — To Assure Election Integrity | Eastern North Carolina Now

    ADDENDUM — NC Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson, Speaking to the House Committee of the Judiciary (April 22, 2021)

    In speaking to the House Committee of the Judiciary about the need for Voter ID to ensure election integrity and about the Democrats' assertion that such a law is discriminatory to African-Americans and an attempt to suppress their vote, NC Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson said that "it is not only insane but Insulting to suggest black Americans are incapable of obtaining a FREE photo ID." I would argue that it is insulting and insane to think that our country must promulgate a false and misleading position that racism is inherent in white people and therefore our society is built on structural racism to continually keep African-Americans from succeeding. I don't believe in victimhood.

    Here are the remarks Lieutenant Governor Robinson delivered:

    "I am the first black lieutenant governor of North Carolina. I hail from Greensboro, the home of the Woolworth sit-ins. It was an epi-center of the Civil Rights movement. I grew up poor as the ninth of ten children, in a home marred by alcoholism. But I had a mother who was a strong woman of faith and she sustained us. She was also a woman who lived through the horribleness of Jim Crow and witnessed the sacrifices made by those to insure that black voices would be heard in government. I know right now she is up in heaven smiling as she sees her son in this committee hearing. But today I am not here to talk about myself...... I am very proud of the history in this nation of my people. My people were put in the belly of ships, and bound in chains during the middle passage. My people were whipped, beaten, and sold as property into slavery. During Reconstruction and during Jim Crow, my people were in intimidated, harassed, and even killed to keep them from having a voice in government. Symbols like chains, nooses, and burning crosses were not just symbols of death but symbols of forced, coerced silence. The sacrifices of our ancestors so I can have the opportunity to become the first black lieutenant governor of my state, to see a black man sit in the White House for two terms, and for millions of us to become leaders in business, athletics, government, and culture add up to an incredible story of victory.

    Today we hear that our states are being compared to Jim Crow, that black voices are being silenced and that black voices are being kept out. How? By bullets, by bombs, by nooses? NO... by requiring a free photo ID to secure their vote. Let me say that again — By requiring a free ID to secure the vote. How absolutely preposterous! Am I to believe that black Americans who have overcome the atrocities of slavery, who were victorious in the Civil Rights movement, and who now sit in the highest level of this government cannot figure out how to get a FREE ID to secure their votes? Am I to believe that they need to be coddled by politicians because we can't figure out how to make our voices be heard? Are you kidding me?? The notion that black people must be protected from a free ID to secure their votes is not only insane, it is insulting. This has nothing to do with politics. It has everything to do with power."

    YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTvKswJjves&ab