Robert Reich: Freedom Summer 2026
Robert Reich shares an idea for hope in a shocking season of gerrymandering. Win anyway, by registering voters. Michelle Obama would say “we go high”:
Friends,
Yesterday I spoke with Tennessee state representative Justin Jones, one of the nation’s young Black leaders who’s been a rising star in Tennessee politics, about the Supreme Court’s shameful April 29 decision in Louisiana v. Callais, gutting Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.
Jones told me that, at Trump’s urging, Tennessee Republicans had prepared a redistricting map even before the Court announced its decision. Then, despite pleas from Black voters and voting rights advocates, the white Republican legislators moved their meeting to another room without allowing the public in to watch, passed the new map out of committee, and enacted it within 24 hours.
The new map has eliminated Tennessee’s one remaining Democratic district around Memphis, a city of about 610,000 people, about two-thirds of whom are Black — by cracking it into three majority-white district, one stretching hundreds of miles. The map has also divided Nashville, another city with a Black majority, into five white-majority districts.
Jones described Tennessee house speaker Cameron Sexton as the “grand wizard in chief,” explaining that “that’s what they want to do. They want to create a process that is unfair and unequal.”
Other Southern states have joined Tennessee’s rush to redistrict.
Louisiana’s governor has ordered that the state’s ongoing congressional election be set aside while state lawmakers redraw maps to eliminate a Democratic-majority – that is, a Black-majority – seat covering Baton Rouge.
At Trump’s request, Alabama Republicans have approved legislation directing the governor to schedule new primary elections this year under a GOP-friendly map that would end districts represented by Black lawmakers, if courts lift an injunction on its redistricting.
The Mississippi legislature will soon convene in a Confederate-era capitol building that it hasn’t used in 100 years, presumably to eliminate the Democratic majority in the one Mississippi district held by a Black representative.
South Carolina’s Republican majority in the statehouse voted Wednesday to extend its legislative calendar, allowing time to consider whether they should eliminate the state’s sole Democratic-majority, Black-majority district, held by long-serving representative James Clyburn.
Florida was already in a special redistricting session when the Supreme Court announced its decision, enacting a congressional map for its 28 districts that packs Black and brown voters into four districts on the south Florida coast and Orlando, eliminating every other Democratic majority.
“We’re going backwards at warp speed,” Jones told me. “In just over a week, we’ve gone from the 1965 Voting Rights Act back to the era of Jim Crow.”
I asked him what he and other Black political leaders in the South were planning to do.
“There’ll be a lot of litigation,” he said, “but we can’t be optimistic with this Supreme Court.”
“So, what’s the strategy?”
“We need the biggest voter turnout in history this fall. Every Black person, every Brown person, every Democrat, everyone who cares about the moral soul of this nation has to vote for equal voting rights. Take over Congress. Increase our power in state legislatures. This is the only way to respond.”
“I’m with you,” I said, “but I really wonder whether that’s possible.”
“How about a new Freedom Summer?” Jones responded, with a smile. “A multi-racial force of young people fanning out across the South, registering voters, getting them to the polls, just like they did in 1964.”
“I remember. I lost a dear friend in Mississippi Freedom Summer.”
“I have no direct memory, of course,” Jones said. “I was born in 1995, thirty-one years after Freedom Summer. But the South is almost back to where it was then. So, yes, it’s possible. It’s got to be possible.”
I told him I’d share his idea with you, and ask you for your responses.
My Problem With ICE
I have a long history with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. I’ve been in and out of the USA since I was a little girl. We have filled out countless forms for passports, and many times more those forms telling what we are bringing back into the country. The only time I ever had a problem with ICE was on returning from one of our African trips when I was bringing in wildebeest jerky from South Africa. I laugh now, it was me and a lot of African nationals shunted off. They were opening suitcases full of vegetables they were bringing back for family, and I was told my package of jerky was illegal in the United States. AdventureMan was annoyed with me, and I was ashamed I didn’t know. But they let me off with a mild scolding about infecting disease free animal life in the USA. I’ve never forgotten.
I’ve never minded the tiresome lines for immigration, always manned by sturdy, polite young people wanting to know where we’ve been and how did we like our trip; they were doing their job and they had been trained how to deal with people. In all my times going through those lines, I never saw any kind of incident.
They had a mission.
With the new administration, that mission changed, enlarged. They were given different, even SECRET orders, orders that encouraged them to commit the sorts of acts we saw in Minnesota. It always looked to me like those acts, committed on US Citizens, committed on resident citizens, smacked of incitement to violence. Why else would these customs and immigration officers be asked to violate the US Constitution in pursuing their mission?
I applaud those stoic and humor-filled Minnesotans who protested with restraint, who did not invite violent responses. Even if the Department of Justice will not cooperate in the investigations you are conducting into the murders of Minneapolis citizens, you are gathering witness from street cameras and witnesses against the illegal actions, and the lies and accusations, unjust, of the ICE officials and the Department of Justice. I applaud the restraint that forestalled any illusion of reason for a “national emergency” and activation of a military presence. The militaristic costumes of the immigration and customs officials did not fool nor intimadate you. Your patient, evidence based investigations will be embarrassment enough to those who thought to prevail by intimidation and brutality.
So we have to look at why the ICE men and women sent by our leader to Democratic states felt so empowered to misbehave?
Many ICE hirees have law enforcement backgrounds. Many of them have served in the armed forces. They know the basics. They know the law. They must have had second thoughts, many of them, while conducting these unrestrained acts of violence characterized as arrests of “rapists, thieves and the mentally ill,” as they arrested family men, women – and children, with no criminal records.
As well as knowing the law, and the legal use of power, those who are Christian would know Christ’s admonition to love our neighbor as ourself. Those who are Jewish would know the Old Testament verses about welcoming the stranger. Those who were raised without religion might be familiar with Spiderman, who teaches us that with great power comes great responsibility.
These $50K hires are as expendable as Pam Bondi and Kristi Noem. Once they have served their purpose, they can be scapegoated for excessive zeal in pursuit of the mission, or charged with murder while their superiors, who put the secret policies into effect, escape blame and punishment.
Again, I applaud the Minnesotans, who with restraint, humor, and humanity, protected the weakest, the families and children, while EFFECTIVELY resisting the provocation they faced. Well done, Minnesota!
And lets take a minute to grieve the effects of the violence upon those who inflicted it, mere pawns in a greater game of thrones.
Slight of Hand and Wires and Mirrors; No Accountability
Our leader announced a speech to the nation, which turned out to be nothing but repeats of “Truth” social posts and comments previously made. A boring, disjointed 19 minutes of nothing credible. Credibility is stating a mission and following through. Chaos is changing the mission and its achievements every ten minutes or so. If you don’t believe me, watch the stock market.
Meanwhile, behind the curtain, The Great Oz and his handlers are changing how our democracy operates. The failed military officer, Pete Hegseth is examining and removing African Americans, females, and especially African American Females from promotion lists. He is firing the top general who questions his judgement in toying with a time honored system where the military chooses its leaders based on performance and leadership abilities, not their gender nor their color.
Does Hegseth understand demographics? Does he understand that military recruitment is problematic these days days, that the pool of recruits has shrunk dramatically? Does he understand that brawn no longer wins wars, but fighter planes, drones, new ideas and weapon development are fighting a new kind of war, where every gender and color contributes the the nuances of creative strategies available to a commander in chief who genuinely understands how to function in the fog of war?
Today Heather Cox Richardson alerts us to another slight of hand, the kind of small change the controllers hope will go unnoticed: The challenge of ACCOUNTABILITY and how it impedes a sitting President. She quotes the following, and it quite takes my breath away:
Yesterday Assistant Attorney General T. Elliot Gaiser, of the Office of Legal Counsel, published an opinion for the White House that claims the Presidential Records Act, which requires that presidents keep records of their official business and turn them over at the end of their term, is unconstitutional. Gaiser clerked for Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito.
“The PRA is not a valid exercise of Congress’s Article I authority and unconstitutionally intrudes on the independence and autonomy of the President guaranteed by Article II. The Act establishes a permanent and burdensome regime of congressional regulation of the Presidency untethered from any valid and identifiable legislative purpose,” the memo reads. “For these reasons, the PRA is unconstitutional, and the President need not further comply with its dictates.”
(taking a moment to catch my breath)
We burden our elected president with the requirement that we know what he does and why he is doing it?
How can anyone believe this lunacy? Any person in a position of responsibility has to answer to his polity! Elected politicians all the more. He answers to us, the voters.
Our leader has a lot to answer for. We can’t trust anything he says, from minute to minute. Our treasury has been declared insolvent. He is sending our children off to war with unclear orders and insufficient leadership.
He has hired a confederacy of ignorant, greedy sycophants. He has gutted our diplomatic service. He has gutted Consumer Oversight. He has gutted the Environmental Protection Agency. He has corrupted the Department of Education.
He is terrified he cannot win and is attempting to take over national elections. Meanwhile, he is bankrupting our country with garish monuments and wars we never agreed to fight.
He is subjecting women to outdated standards and taken away their rights to make decisions for their own bodies.
He is corrupting our social system, taking medical care away from those who need it most, and callously neglecting the veterans who have served our country so loyally.
He has made agreements with other countries that we only learn about by accidental comments.
This can’t go on. Give us Accountability. Oversight. Congressional Approval. Fair and Free Elections. Constitutional Restraints!
Even Fox News?
From Robert Reich’s post of March 29, Trump’s ratings continue to tank. The relevance? Most presidents get a bump with a war, people tend to back their leader. Then again, when most country leaders start a war, they consult with allies, and give their population a clue about what is about to happen and why. Failing to do that results in lack of enthusiasm by former friends, treated rudely, and a population treated as irrelevant to the needs and goals of the leader.
Meanwhile, Trump’s polls continue to tank. In the new Reuters/Ipsos poll, only 36 percent approve of his performance while 62 percent disapprove, a new record low for Trump. In the latest Quinnipiac poll, 38 percent approve of him; 56 percent disapprove. Even the latest Fox News poll shows Trump approval at only 41 percent; disapproval at 59 percent; and fully 58 percent of Americans opposing U.S. military action in Iran.
Anna Julia Haywood Cooper
Today the church honors Anna Julia Haywood Cooper, an extraordinary woman who prevailed against prejudice.
ANNA JULIA HAYWOOD COOPER
EDUCATOR
(1964)
Anna Julia Haywood Cooper (August 10, c1859- February 27, 1964). Educator, advocate and scholar. Born in Raleigh, North Carolina to an enslaved woman and a white man, presumably her mother’s master, Anna Julia was an academically gifted child and received a scholarship to attend St. Augustine Normal School and Collegiate Institute, a school founded by the Episcopal Church to educate African-American teachers and clergy. There she began her membership in the Episcopal Church. After forcing her way into a Greek class designed for male theology students, Anna Julia later married the instructor, George A.C. Cooper, the second African-American ordained to the Episcopal priesthood in North Carolina.
After her husband’s death in 1879, Cooper received degrees in mathematics from Oberlin College, and was made principal of the only African American high school in Washington D.C.. She was denied reappointment in 1906 because she refused to lower her educational standards.
Throughout her career, Cooper emphasized the importance of education to the future of African Americans, and was critical of the lack of support they received from the church. An advocate for African-American women, Cooper assisted in organizing the Colored Women’s League and the first Colored Settlement House in Washington, D.C. She wrote and spoke widely on issues of race and gender, and took an active role in national and international organizations founded to advance African Americans.
At the age of fifty-five she adopted the five children of her nephew. In 1925, Cooper became the fourth African-American woman to complete a Ph.D degree, granted from the Sorbonne when she was sixty-five years old. From 1930-1942, Cooper served as president of Frelinghuysen University.
from the Episcopal Women’s History Project
League of Women Voters: State of Union Bingo Cards
Gotta love those ladies in pearls, although lately the League has been attracting a much younger group of activists. An amazingly non-political group, the League looks at issues and candidates, and encourages INFORMED voters. All people are welcome; in spite of the name, the league also includes men. This is a group that makes a difference.
With their wicked sense of humor, the National League encourages all Americans to watch the dreaded State of the Union speech tonight, and has published a set of Bingo Cards to keep you engaged. You can download them for yourself and your family members at League of Women Voters: State of the Union Bingo or you can print these, which I downloaded from their website.
Yes, I am a member of this group. They keep up with the important issues, and they invite speakers to meetings to explain the substance to the public. They educate people about voting rights without bias.
They help with elections, and, where allowed, they help register new voters – people turning 18, new citizens, people who haven’t voted before. The current stereotype of this group as elderly educated women in pearls is quickly changing as super-charged young people seek to exert their rights in an orderly, lawful fashion.
By uniting women from all parties and all walks of life, they have a big voice and have effectively challenged unjust and unconstitutional laws at the local, state, and national levels. They take their commitment voting rights, issues, and impartiality very seriously.
And, they have a wonderful sense of humor 😄.
Bravo, Judge Leon!
Judge Leon blocks Pentagon and Hegseth in prosecution to punish Mark Kelly over ‘illegal orders’ video
U.S. District Judge Richard Leon, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, noted that while serving in the armed forces, military forces have limitations on some of their freedoms, but said that no court had ever extended that doctrine to retired service members, and he would not be the first to do so.
“This Court has all it needs to conclude that Defendants have trampled on Senator Kelly’s First Amendment freedoms and threatened the constitutional liberties of millions of military retirees,” the judge wrote.
Leon quoted singer-songwriter Bob Dylan to say, “You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.” ”
The Judge had some pithy and appropriate things to say about military retirees and their rights to free speech, and in particular to Kelly’s position not only as a retired veteran, but also as a current Senator, where his responsibility to represent his electorate would be severely hampered by intimidating threats to take away or reduce his pension, or bring him back on duty to court-martial him for his “crime.”
His crime? Senator Kelly appeared in a video with five other veterans serving in the Senate reminding service members they have a responsibility NOT to obey illegal orders.
After WWII, many German leaders tried to excuse their crimes by saying “We were only following orders.”
When orders violate the Constitution, we do not have to comply. Constitutional rights apply to all people living in the United States, all residents; every person is authorized due process of the law.
These Constitutional Rights are being tested. Judge Leon is a Bush appointed judge, a man with years of judicial procedures behind him.
We are finding some ironic ways in which our President is unifying us. Republicans and Democrats alike recoiled in horror at the goon-squad “policing” in Minnesota. Republican and Democrat judicial appointees are correcting mistaken applications of power and brute force, and corraling them back where they belong. And God Bless Bad Bunny for reminding us that America is two continents, and that we are all stronger together. The vast majority of Americans on both continents were ready for some joy, and words of brotherhood, liberty and equality. We have more in common than we have differences.
If the United States of America is to continue to be a land welcoming those seeking opportunity and freedom, we all have to work towards this together, supporting our common values and finding ways to cooperate, even in areas where we disagree.
By the way, under the catagory of unanticipated consequences, Senator Mark Kelly received a huge surge of financial contributions to defend himself against this intimidation by our Secretary of Defense. This is a man who could successfully run for President, with his presence, his courage, his background and his steadfast approach.
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