National Urban League President Marc Morial said Friday on MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports” that presidential candidate Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) is the “21st-century George Wallace.”
On Fox News, DeSantis said, “We have school choice. That’s one of the reasons why our black students perform as high as just about any black students in the country. You go to Baltimore or Chicago, some of the kids are more likely to get shot than have a high-quality education. I don’t hear the NAACP talking about that.”
When asked for a response, Morial said, “He is a history suppresser. He is a voter suppresser. His effort to distract the issue into discussion of school choice misses the point that he has been a book banner and a black history suppresser, and a voter suppresser. That is his record. While that talking point may work with some elements of the Republican primary base, the more he acts that way, the more he emphasizes those issues. He loses one of the points he is trying to make, which is I’m more electable in a general election. He seems like he is trying to become the new Trump or Trumpish. That is not what will make him a better general election candidate. His actions in suppressing black history and in opposing AP black history is so offensive to me and so offensive to so many of us. It’s not only shocking and surprising. He literally has made himself, in many respects, a 21st-century George Wallace. He is blocking the doors to libraries, to the legitimacy of African-American contributions to this country. It’s offensive. It’s racist. It’s backward leaning. It’s not the 21st century.”
He added, “The important thing about it is censorships sound like North Korea, sound like Russia, sound like totalitarian regimes. No matter whether we agree or disagree what’s in a book, then we have always honored in this country the marketplace of discussion, the marketplace of ideas and to place the official sanction on the state on the suppression of history is anti-American. period, full stop.”
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