Congressman Mfume supports policing reform legislation

Maryland Congressman Kweisi Mfume says in floor debate on the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act that he listened intently to a litany by the Republican leader and looked through the lens of history about admonitions of the 16th president Abraham Lincoln but the bottom line was in any debate there ought to be real context so there were other things Lincoln said that were relevant to the debate including in 1848 speech in Illinois where he said citizens had succeeded in dehumanizing the Negro and put him down as a beast in the field, extinguished his soul and placed them where the ray of hope was blown out in darkness of the damned, destroyed the Negro spirit and planted seeds of despotism at their own doorstep, ignoring the chains of bondage to prepare their own limbs to wear them, assist accustom to trample on the rights and freedoms of others who would become three fifths subjects of the first conning tyrant to arise among them.