BPR Full Show: Voting Rights and the Legacy of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Today on Boston Public Radio:

Rev. Cornell William Brooks discusses the Black faith leaders that engaged in a hunger strike for voting rights, and shares why he likens the Jan. 6 Capitol attacks to the Confederate attack at Fort Sumter. Brooks is the Hauser Professor of the Practice of Nonprofit Organizations and Professor of the Practice of Public Leadership and Social Justice at the Harvard Kennedy School. Brooks is the former president and CEO of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), a civil rights attorney, and an ordained minister.

We then ask listeners about failed voting rights legislation, and what it means for midterms and the 2024 presidential election.

Simon van Zuylen-Wood talks about Hillbilly Elegy author J.D. Vance’s run for U.S. Senate, and his decision to tag himself as a conservative outsider. van Zuylen-Wood is a freelance journalist based in NYC, who’s recently written about the radicalization of JD Vance.

Evan Horowitz updates us on how Mass. could bring in more than $1 billion in revenue if voters approve a ballot question to implement a “Millionaire’s Tax” in the state. Horowitz is executive director of the Center for State Policy Analysis at Tufts.

Revs. Irene Monroe and Emmett G. Price III share their thoughts on the fate of the Democrats’ voting rights bill, and reflect on the life and legacy of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. Monroe is a syndicated religion columnist and the Boston voice for Detour’s African American Heritage Trail. Price is founding pastor of Community of Love Christian Fellowship in Allston, the Inaugural Dean of Africana Studies at Berklee College of Music. Together, they host the “All Rev’d Up” podcast at GBH.

We open the phone lines, continuing our conversation with listeners on the state of voting rights.

We end the show by replaying our conversation with New Yorker writer Jelani Cobb on his book, “The Essential Kerner Commission Report,” which places the 1968 Kerner Commission Report in today’s political context.