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Candidates for County Executive, Council Square Off at Forum
Voting Rights Ceremony
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Herman also represented the county at last Thursday's White House signing ceremony for the 25-year extension of the Voting Rights Act.
The landmark 1960s civil rights legislation ensured access to the ballot box for millions of black voters. Its extension means that the U.S. Justice Department will continue to review any proposed changes to voting laws in several states.
Herman said he was honored to stand in for Johnson at the historic event.
"To see the extension of it, the reaffirmation of it, was a very powerful moment," he said. "The real luminaries of the civil rights movement were there. It was wonderful to be together arm in arm with them."
Those attending included NAACP Chairman Julian Bond and family members of the late Rosa Parks , Coretta Scott King and Fannie Lou Hamer . Hamer was beaten and jailed in 1962 for trying to register to vote in Mississippi.
Also present were Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.), Del. Herman L. Taylor II (D-Montgomery) and the Rev. Grainger Browning Jr. , pastor of the 10,000-member Ebenezer African Methodist Episcopal Church in Fort Washington.
"You really feel a sense of history being here today," Browning said as he took his seat on the South Lawn of the White House for the ceremony.
Hilary Shelton , Washington bureau chief of the NAACP, said the signing ceremony was special because so many people had laid politics aside.
"It means that something as fundamental as voting rights transcends normal politics on Capitol Hill," she said. "It means that there are times we can set aside political differences and address the needs and concerns of people."
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