Senator Tom Brewer
43rd District
7-3-2020

I have traveled all over the world, and I believe America is the most multi-ethnic, most racially integrated, most colorblind country on Earth. We promise civil rights with the rule of law, and we rely on our courts to back up that promise. Our market economy makes economic mobility possible here in a way that is only a dream in many other nations. The idea the United States today is a horribly racist country has no relationship to truth or reality.

We fought a Civil War to end slavery. That war resulted in over 800,000 casualties. Adjusted for today’s population, that would be the equivalent of over eight million casualties. No nation on the face of the Earth has ever laid such a sacrifice upon the altar of human freedom.

In 1863 President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation freeing slaves in the states in rebellion.

1865, President Lincoln led the effort to get the 13th Amendment passed in Congress, legally abolishing slavery throughout the United States.

Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and 1871, the Enforcement Act of 1870, the Force Act of 1871, the KKK Act and the Civil Rights Act of 1875. These were all efforts to advance the cause of integration.

In 1868, the 14th Amendment was ratified by the states. It guarantees due process and equal protection of all citizens, especially freed African slaves. In 1870, the 15th Amendment was passed to guarantee the right to vote for all citizens.

The Insurrection Act was amended in 1871 to allow use of the military to enforce, among other things, voting rights and desegregation. In 1871, Ulysses S. Grant sent a thousand soldiers to hunt down Klansmen in South Carolina and they captured 600 of them.

In 1948, President Truman issued an executive order to desegregate the US military.

In 1954, the Supreme Court ruled in the Brown versus Board of Education decision, nine to zero. It ended legal racial segregation in schools.

In 1957, President Eisenhower sent the 101st Airborne Division to Little Rock, AR to protect nine black students entering Little Rock Central High School against the order of the governor. In 1959, he ordered the desegregation of the Washington, D.C. public schools.

In 1964, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act with an overwhelming majority of Republicans in the House and the Senate. It prohibits discrimination in voting, public accommodations, public facilities, public education, Federal assistance programs and employment.

In 1965, Congress passed the Voting Rights Act that prohibited denial or restriction of the right to vote. It forbids discriminatory voting practices nationwide.

This list just scratches the surface. I could fill every page of this newspaper with all the things Americans have done to make this the least racist country on Earth. We will continue to make our union “more perfect” as Americans have done throughout our history. We have always grown as a society by building people up, not tearing things down.

Please contact my office with any comments, questions, or concerns. Email me at tbrewer@leg.ne.gov, mail a letter to Sen. Tom Brewer, Room #1101, P.O. Box 94604, Lincoln, NE 68509, or call us at (402) 471-2628.