We Should Listen to Cory Booker

Last Tuesday and Wednesday, 55-year-old democratic senator from New Jersey, Cory Booker, without any breaks to sit, eat, sleep or even use the restroom, filibustered on the Senate floor for 25 hours and five minutes.

His speaking surpassed the previous record set by Strom Thurmond, a famously racist Dixiecrat who served in the United States Senate from 1932 to 2003, who, according to senate.gov’s biography of him, “joined 18 other southern senators in signing the Southern Manifesto, a statement that called for resistance to desegregation in public education in the wake of the Supreme Court’s landmark Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka decisions.”

Thurmond filibustered every civil rights bill in the Senate during his tenure as a senator. It is notable that Booker broke Thurmond’s record, and his speech is a symbolic blow against the racism that Thurmond inflicted upon Black Americans for over 70 years during his tenure in the Senate.

Booker’s speech was also notable because, unlike the majority of other people who have carried out filibusters, he did not read out of the phone book, the Bible or Dr. Suess books in order to fill up time. Instead, he gave an impassioned speech that lasted over a day, in which he spoke on behalf of the common American.

During his marathon speech, Booker emphasized the importance of bipartisanship and of implementing policies that are best for all Americans.

According to an NPR article titled, “Sen. Cory Booker on his marathon, 25-hour speech on the Senate floor,” which was published on April 2. Booker stated “this cannot be a Democratic only win that we're looking for. The only way to win now is by waking up and engaging with people on both sides of the political aisle. And the real reasons to stop this because it makes no fiscal sense to create trillions of dollars of more obligations for our grandchildren. It makes no sense to take money away from programs like Medicaid, all to give tax cuts that disproportionately go to the wealthiest amongst us. That's, I think, most people's sort of principles that violates.”

In the opening and closing of his speech, Booker invoked the words of John Robert Lewis, who was not only a renowned civil rights leader and a native of Troy, but also Booker’s mentor. According to the Associated Press article “With a nod to America’s civil rights legacy, Sen. Cory Booker makes a mark of his own,” which was published on April 1, Booker wanted to emulate Lewis, who he felt “would not just go along with business as usual.”

He likened Lewis’ resistance to Jim Crow to today’s opponents of Trump’s policies, reading letters from Americans about the negative impacts that the policies of the new administration are having on their lives, and warning the world of a “looming constitutional crisis.”

“This is a moral moment,” Booker said. “It’s not left or right; it’s right or wrong.”

To close out his speech, Booker invoked Lewis once again. He recalled how he told him, in the last conversation the two men had, that “we’ll do everything possible to make you proud.”

Booker stated Lewis “wouldn’t treat this moral moment like it was normal.”

I urge the reader to follow the examples of activists such as Lewis and Booker, and to not treat the present “moral moment” and “constitutional crisis” as though it is normal. Do not allow your rights to be stripped away without resistance. Peacefully protest, contact your elected officials and, most importantly, vote.

Recall the words that Thomas Jefferson penned in the Declaration of Independence: “​​we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” These unalienable rights, specifically that of liberty, are under threat today. Do not let go of the rights and freedoms we enjoy.

These unalienable rights are “endowed by our Creator,” not endowed by Donald Trump.

These unalienable rights include the rights to freedom of speech, press, and assembly, the right to not be subject to unreasonable search and seizure and the right to due process.

The Trump administration has put many of these rights under threat, as is seen with the mass deportation of Venezuelan nationals to CECOT, a Salvadorian prison that is notorious for human rights abuses.

According to an ABC News article titled, “Judge defends ruling in case of man erroneously sent to El Salvador prison,” which was published on April 6, Kilmar Garcia, a legal immigrant to the United States who currently lives in Maryland, was, along with almost everyone else who was sent to CECOT, denied due process. He was found to be deported in error, and the judge ordered he be returned to the United States, but not without having to first endure some of the most brutal prison conditions in the world as an innocent man.

For the sake of people like Garcia, and for the sake of all Americans, recall Thomas Jefferson’s assertion that “governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

Do not give men, such as Donald Trump and J.D. Vance, who want to take away your rights or the rights of those you love, the consent of the governed. Do everything possible to make John Lewis proud. Cause good trouble, cause necessary trouble.