A message from CWA President Claude Cummings, Jr.

I’ve at all times loved Independence Day. It’s great to collect with family and friends for a cookout and to look at as my children – and now my grandkids – ooh and ahh over the fireworks and possibly set off a couple of themselves. I welcome the prospect to mirror on the beliefs that led to the founding of our nation and our historical past of battle as we’ve sought to stay as much as these beliefs.

This yr Independence Day has a heaviness to it. The system of presidency that our nation’s founders put in place was meant to make sure that nobody is above the legislation, but a majority on the Supreme Courtroom has turned that on its head, giving one individual – the President – a literal “get out of jail free” card for even probably the most critical violations of our legal guidelines and our Structure.

That might be harmful in any circumstance, however it’s a grievous risk within the fingers of Donald Trump, who has proven full disregard for the legislation all through his enterprise and political careers and has repeatedly mentioned that he intends to make use of the navy as a home police power and the federal authorities as a device for a marketing campaign of retribution towards his perceived enemies.

Over the previous week, I’ve heard from many who’ve all however given up. They are saying that there’s nothing we are able to do and {that a} descent into dictatorship and demagoguery is inevitable.

We should not hand over.

It is a photograph of my father’s ballot tax receipt. Black individuals who needed to train that almost all fundamental proper needed to pay $1.50 in 1947 to have the ability to vote. I preserve this as a reminder of the place we’ve been and the place we are able to by no means return to once more.

At our nation’s founding practically 250 years in the past, the correct to vote was restricted to white male landowners and my ancestors have been enslaved. However People had the instruments they wanted to battle injustice and develop alternative – the free press, the correct to interact in collective motion, and the vote itself.

My spouse, Ruth, is from Selma, and I typically take into consideration what was going by way of the minds of the women and men who have been gathered within the properties and church buildings the night time earlier than they marched throughout the Edmund Pettus Bridge, on what’s now referred to as Bloody Sunday. They knew what they have been about to face. They understood the violence that was about to be unleashed on them. They didn’t know if they’d survive the day. However they did it anyway. Not for themselves, however for future generations. For us.

Your vote and the votes of your co-workers, your loved ones members, and your pals are highly effective they usually have been paid for in blood. I, together with 1000’s of CWA members and retirees, can be doing every thing we are able to between now and election day to prove the vote to proceed the progress we’ve made with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, and to elect pro-worker candidates for the U.S. Home and Senate.

Independence Day wasn’t an finish. It was the start of a battle over the which means of equality and the price of freedom. Let’s recommit ourselves to battle collectively for a brighter future.