CEO's Remarks at NCBCP Voting Rights and Reproductive Justice Call to Action

On June 25, the League's CEO Virginia Kase Solomón joined Black Women Leaders and Allies, an arm of the National Coalition for Black Civic Participation (NCBCP), for their Voting Rights and Reproductive Justice call to action. Notably, this event took place the day following the tragic mass shooting of 19 children and two teachers at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.

Her remarks, and a full stream of the event, can be found below.

I'm the CEO at the League of Women Voters of the US. And I just want to say thank you to Melanie [Campbell, CEO of NCBCP] and all the incredible Black women leaders for, once again, standing in front and leading us through this moment.

I also want to say that I'm feeling emotional this morning because I saw pictures of the babies who were murdered. And one of them looked like my son. And they are majority brown babies. And I keep asking, "Will they talk about this for as long as they did other shootings? Will people care?" And I just know the answer to that question, unfortunately.

But this is not something that's new for our communities. This is not something that is new that we have seen. And it's all connected.

So will we be silenced? No, we won't be silenced. Because we know what's at risk. Our children's lives, the many, many children whose lives will never ever be seen on the news because they weren't considered important enough because they lived inside the wrong neighborhood. The women, the women who have been hurt and traumatized time and time again, and told what to do with our bodies.

When we think about our democracy, we have got to radically re-imagine what is possible and what is possible in this country. And we aren't waiting for anybody else to make that decision.

That is why we are here today. Because our democracy is at stake. And if you think it's about one single issue, it is not but it always starts with women.

And so I stand here today with my friends, my Black women friends, these beautiful women who have been leading time and time again to say that we are not going to go anywhere we will be here...and we will continue this fight until we win. We may be a little bit jittery this morning because it shook us, but it will not make us move any differently. We will continue to be here in this fight. We will continue to do this work until the day we die because we know what is possible in this country and what it is right now is America's worst nightmare.

So we are here, we are not going anywhere, and we will not be silent.