Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson: Notion That Black People Can’t Figure Out How To Get a ID Is “Insulting” | Eastern NC Now

Publisher's Note: This post appears here courtesy of the John Locke Foundation. The author of this post is Andy Jackson.

    North Carolina Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson recently announced that he would not run for US Senate in 2022, but his testimony today before the US House Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties shows that Congress is a poorer body for his absence.

    Here is part of Robinson's prepared statement:

• My people were put in the belly of ships, bound by chains, and endured the middle passage. My people were whipped, beaten, and sold as property. In Reconstruction and throughout Jim Crow, black people were intimidated, harassed, and even killed to keep them from having a voice in government. Symbols like chains, nooses, and burnt crosses are not just symbols of death, they are symbols of forced and coerced silence.
• The sacrifices of our ancestors so I could have the opportunity to become the first black lieutenant governor of my state, to see a black man sit in the White House, and for millions of us to be leaders in business, athletics, and culture is incredible.
• Now today we hear comparisons of Georgia law compared to Jim Crow, that black voices are being silenced, and that black voices are being kept out.
• How? By fear of a noose or chains? To be fired from work? To be ostracized by their communities? No. A freeID to vote. Let me say that again, a free ID to 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 levels of government cannot figure out how to get a free ID to vote?
• That we need to be coddled by politicians because they don't think we can figure out how to make our voices heard? Are you kidding me!?
• The notion that black people must be protected from a Free ID to vote is not just insane, it's insulting.
• And let me tell you something. It has nothing to do with justice and everything to do with power.

    Another North Carolinian, the Rev. Dr. James Barber III, also testified before the committee.

    Here is a video of the full committee meeting.