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SCLC Fights To Free Death Row Inmate
While Evidence in Pervis Payne Case for Killing White Woman Disappears
Last week President Joe Biden hosted an impressive list of civil rights leaders at the White House. They came to discuss national efforts by Republican officials to restrict voting rights and criminal justice reform considering an alarming uptick in police killing of Black people since the 2008 election of Barack Obama.
Those present included Marc Morial, President of the National Urban League, Al Sharpton, President of the National Action Network Damon Hewitt, President and Executive Director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under the Law, Wade Henson, President and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, Derrick Johnson, President of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and Johnnetta Cole, President of the National Council of Negro Women.
Noticeably absent from this auspicious lineup was Charles Steele, Jr., President of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the organization that led the fight to enact the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voter Rights Act. With such a pedigree, one would think the President of SCLC would have been a leading advocate for the Black agenda in the meeting with Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.
