Adams’ Op-Ed on DeSantis and Abbott’s Migrant Trips Published in Boston Globe

BOSTON (September 19, 2022) – Today, the Boston Globe published an opinion piece by Congresswoman Alma Adams (NC-12) on the parallels between the migrant trips from Florida and Texas, and the “Reverse Freedom Rides” sponsored by White Citizens’ Councils in 1962 to mock the American Civil Rights Movement.

The piece can be read in its entirety here.An excerpt is below:

Abbott and DeSantis are using the same tactics as segregationists and the White Citizens’ Councils, and they are making the same mistakes. By using human beings as political pawns, they are acknowledging their intolerance and putting it on display for all to see.

Even the geography is similar. The Reverse Freedom Rides sent many families to Hyannis Port, Mass., near then President John Kennedy’s family compound, near the island of Martha’s Vineyard. The victims of DeSantis’ stunt could travel there by ferry. Black Americans were sent to the Kennedys home; migrants are being sent to Vice President Harris’s residence in Washington, D.C.

What is different about this new experiment in political trafficking is that it was endorsed and paid for by the governments of Florida and Texas. The Citizens’ Councils tried but were unsuccessful in gaining funding from the Louisiana legislature for the Reverse Freedom Rides. Most organizations like the Citizens’ Councils no longer operate in daylight, so instead of white supremacy by proxy, these governors are engaging in white supremacy by state action.

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