Join us in a conversation with Ken Blackwell, former mayor of Cincinnati and former Ohio secretary of state.
Tuesday, April 27, 2021 at 12 p.m. (ET)
The state of Georgia continues to be pounded by the Left for enacting a voting law that expands access while making it harder to cheat.
Led by Joe Biden, who called it “Jim Crow on steroids,” numerous Democrats have attacked the law as racist, enabling “white supremacy.”
On April 20, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing shamefully titled: “Jim Crow 2021: The Latest Assault on the Right to Vote.”
Leftist exemplars like failed Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams mischaracterized Georgia’s new voting law, much as Joe Biden did earlier, calling it a new form of “Jim Crow.”
That outrageous comparison should offend all Americans, but particularly black Americans who know the history of the brutal Jim Crow era in the Democrat-run South.
Black Americans were prevented from voting by forcing them to jump through hoops that white voters did not have to do, such as pay a poll tax or guess the number of jellybeans in a jar. Blacks were prevented from buying property in certain areas, and barred from sharing pools and drinking fountains. Until Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the open, government-sanctioned discrimination went deep.
By contrast, Georgia’s new law merely makes it easier to vote and harder to cheat – for everyone.
Democrats and complicit media lie repeatedly about common-sense safeguards such as requiring a valid ID, which they say suppresses minority voting because minorities can’t be expected to have an ID like all other adults. How racist of them.
Dozens of “woke” corporate CEOs and celebrities signed a two-page newspaper ad condemning the Georgia law, and Major League Baseball pulled its All-Star Game out of Atlanta.
Outraged by the torrent of lies about Georgia, I and 20 other black American leaders sent a letter to the Judiciary Committee explaining why the mischaracterizations are not only egregious but dangerous.
In part, the letter said:
“It has become clear that even well-intentioned critics of the law simply have no idea what the law is … they have no idea how favorably Georgia’s new law compares with most other states—including President Biden’s home state of Delaware. And it is clear they have no idea that a majority of black voters across the country support the key provision under attack by critics—the simple requirement that voters be able to identify themselves when voting. This is the same simple requirement needed to pick up baseball tickets or board a plane—activities hardly as important as voting.
“Critics of the law have substituted passion for reason, hysteria for judgment. They have launched a despicable smear campaign against supporters of the law and economic reprisals against the state of Georgia – punishing the very people they claim to champion. They have tarred with the brush of racism people whose only sin is a desire for confidence in our elections. It’s time to end these campaigns of misinformation, division, and hate.”
Signatories from Georgia include the Rev. Alveda King, niece of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and head of Alveda King Ministries; Michael Lancaster, director of the Frederick Douglass Foundation; and Vernon Jones, who, like King, is a former Georgia state representative.
Also among the 21 signers are Kay C. James, Bob Woodson, Star Parker, Col. Allen West and other prominent leaders.
Ken Blackwell is co-author, with Ken Klukowski, of “Resurgent: How Constitutional Conservatism Can Save America.”
Ken Blackwell, who spearheaded the project to send the letter to the Senate, is Senior Fellow for Human Rights and Constitutional Governance at the Family Research Council.
President Trump appointed Ken to the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity.
He is a national bestselling author of two other books: “Rebuilding America: A Prescription For Creating Strong Families, Building The Wealth Of Working People, And Ending Welfare,” and “The Blueprint: Obama’s Plan to Subvert the Constitution and Build an Imperial Presidency.”
He serves on the board of directors of various high-profile organizations including The Timothy Plan, the International Foundation for Electoral Systems, the United States Air Force Academy Foundation, the Club for Growth, Grove City College, the National Rifle Association, First Liberty Institute, the National World War II Museum, the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund and the American Constitutional Rights Union. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and on the Board of Advisors of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA).
Mr. Blackwell has had a vast political career. He was mayor of Cincinnati, treasurer and secretary of state for Ohio, undersecretary at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Commission. He was a delegate to the White House Summit on Retirement Savings in 1998 and 2002. During the 1990s, he served on the congressionally appointed National Commission on Economic Growth and Tax Reform and the board of the International Republican Institute. He was co-chairman of the U.S. Census Monitoring Board from 1999-2001.
Ken has received many awards and honors for his work in the public sector. These accolades include the U.S. Department of State’s Superior Honor Award for his work in the field of human rights, which he received from the administrations of Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. In 2004, the American Conservative Union honored Mr. Blackwell with the John M. Ashbrook Award for his steadfast conservative leadership.
Ken’s commentaries have been published in major newspapers and websites, including: The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Washington Times, and Investor’s Business Daily. He has been interviewed by many media outlets including CBS’s Face the Nation, NBC’s Meet the Press, ABC’s This Week, and Fox News Sunday.
His continuing education has included executive programs at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard. Mr. Blackwell has also received honorary doctoral degrees from 10 institutions of higher education. He holds Bachelor of Science and Master of Education degrees from Xavier University in Ohio, where he later served as a vice president and member of its faculty. In 1992, he received Xavier’s Distinguished Alumnus Award and was inducted into Xavier’s Athletic Hall of Fame in 2015.
Ken is married to Rosa, and they have three grown children.
Please join us for this important and stimulating discussion.
