Published: Saturday, December 10, 2011, 10:20 PM Updated: Saturday, December 10, 2011, 10:46 PM By The Associated Press
NEW YORK – Civil rights activists protested stricter voting laws
Talbert W. Swan II, president of the Springfield branch of the NAACP, and other members of the organization, join a voting rights march in New York City Saturday.
Saturday with a march from the New York offices of Koch Industries, whose owners have supported an organization that favors tighter safeguards against election fraud. “You can’t accomplish anything if you’re not prepared to fight,” said U.S. Rep. Charles Rangel, wearing a hat with embroidered with “NAACP.” Rangel and other labor leaders and politicians said they wanted to roll back new voting rules passed in several states. From Springfield, Mass., the Rev. Talbert W. Swan II said he brought 45 people by bus to join the “Stand for Freedom” protest. “The local branch wanted to show its support in the effort to relieve the country of voter suppression. .¤.¤. We wanted to aid in that effort, to stand for freedom for our voting rights,” said Swan, president of the Springfield branch of the NAACP and pastor of the Spring Hope Church of God in Christ in that city.
Some of the laws passed in more than a dozen states around the country include requiring photo IDs at the ballot box and restricting voting by ex-felons. Critics say the laws will have a negative effect on blacks, Latinos, students and the elderly. “Voting rights are being challenged all across the United States,” said Diane Sanders, 50, an organizer with 1199SEIU, the service employee’s international union and one of the nation’s largest unions. “People have died for the right to vote. We can’t just sit by and let our rights be taken from us.” The group met and rallied among the tony Upper East Side buildings where Koch Industries has New York offices. The company is headquartered in Wichita, Kan. The protesters say Koch is directly responsible because it funded the political lobbying group that helped pass the laws.
Malinda Davis, a member of the Springfield branch of the NAACP, demonstrates during a voting rights march in New York City Saturday.
Though Koch Industries is the oft-cited corporate sponsor of the lobby group behind the voting laws, and is one of its largest, there are others, including Wal-Mart, Coca-Cola and AT&T. Koch, owned by billionaire brothers David and Charles Koch, is one of the nation’s largest privately held companies with business interests that include refining, chemicals and commodities trading. “Koch has taken no position on the voter ID issue, which is why these groups are wrong and completely misguided in their false accusations,” company spokesman Bill O’Reilly said in a statement. Rangel, along with the Rev. Al Sharpton, and Hazel Dukes of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, locked arms and led the march on Madison Avenue south to a plaza near the United Nations in honor of U.N. Human Rights Day. “Voting is a human right,” said Imam Talib Abdur-Rashid. “And human rights are sacred rights.”
