WASHINGTON (RNS) — On the first full day of their annual session, a busload of members of the Progressive National Baptist Convention, a historically Black denomination that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. called home, headed to Capitol Hill to meet with members of Congress about their concerns about voting in the upcoming midterms and beyond them.
“We cannot come to D.C. and not have conversations with our federal legislators,” said the Rev. Willie D. Francois III, co-chair of the PNBC’s Social Justice Commission, during a live edition of the youth-led podcast “The Pew and the Porch.” Francois spoke on the episode on Monday (July 20) at the Omni Shoreham shortly before he and the younger panelists left for their Capitol visit.
“The Supreme Court, not too far from here, decided that it was OK for Black folks to not deserve representation in Congress,” he said. “Not only do they want to dilute our vote, now they are telling us we cannot elect the people we want in office.”
Francois said the PNBC is looking to senators and representatives to take action from their branch of government after the high court gutted the Voting Rights Act by declaring a congressional map of Louisiana’s second majority-Black di …