Ahead of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, family members of the civil rights activist organized a rally in Arizona in support of federal voting rights legislation.
MLK’s eldest son, Martin Luther King III, was joined by his wife Arndrea Waters King and their 13-year-old daughter for an on-the-ground campaign for voting rights, rallying local activists and supporters at Pilgrim Rest Baptist Church, a predominantly Black church in Phoenix.
“Arizona, in one sense, is near ground zero, I say near because unfortunately, there are 19 states that have passed regressive laws, including our own state of Georgia,” King III told MSNBC’s Vaughn Hillyard in an interview Saturday.
He went on to say that they “believe that as it relates to getting this, these bills passed, that Senator Sinema has been one of the challenges.” According to him, “it made sense to come to Arizona,” because, “some regressive laws, we feel, have been put in place that make it harder for people to vote.”
The rally comes just days after Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema gave a speech about her support to uphold the legislative filibuster. “We must address the disease itself, the disease of division, to protect our democracy,” Sinema said.
Ahead of the march, King said in a press release that the rally was arranged “to call on Senator Sinema to urgently pass federal voting rights legislation and ensure that the Jim Crow filibuster does not stand in the way.”
“Our daughter has less rights around voting than she had when she was born,” King said in a statement. “I can’t imagine what my mother and father would say about that. I’m sure they’re turning over and over in their graves about this.”
