Without ‘Sea Changes,’ Democratic Platform Alliance With Black Lives Matter Is ‘Naught,’ Co-Founder Says

The Democratic platform needs to strongly address police brutality and racial justice, a Black Lives Matter co-founder told the Democratic National Committee Monday, Axios reported.

Black Lives Matter Co-Founder Patrisse Cullors wants the party to be a political force to match the current movement and are focused on policy change, Axios reported.

“Without the sea changes our movement recommended for the 2020 Democratic platform, any claims to allyship and solidarity with our work to fight for Black liberation are for naught,” Cullors said, Axios reported.

Cullors called recent protests the “largest, most diverse, civil rights moment, movement the world has ever seen, not just in our nation’s history but in human history.”

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In a virtual party platform committee meeting just three weeks before the DNC Convention, Cullors delivered remarks inspired by former Democratic Georgia Rep. John Lewis’s “Speech at the March on Washington” given in August of 1963, Axios reported.

Cullors told Axios she had proposed “about 10” amendments to the 2020 Democratic Party platform covering policing, criminal justice and legal system reform, reparations, education, and the environment, but they were all rejected without a vote.

“Without making the necessary recommitments and revisions, can any of you here truly stand up and say, ‘My party is the party of principles?” Cullors asked committee members on the virtual call.

Cullors said it was critical that leaders back the BREATHE Act, which neither Congressional Democrats nor presumptive Democratic Nominee Joe Biden support, Axios reported. The Act proposes defunding police departments, reducing the budget of the Department of Defense, and establishing various grants available to communities.

“Until and unless our leaders become signatory to the BREATHE Act, to legislation that eliminates the federal government’s ability to give multi-million dollars to grants to militarize police forces, dismantles punitive policings like ICE, Border Patrol, and the DEA and the use of surveillance systems being used to target protesters and bans the use of police agencies to suppress political dissent, the Democratic party of today will be remembered as the party of complicity,” Cullors said during the meeting.

The BREATHE Act was introduced to the House of Representatives by Democratic New York Rep. Yvette Clarke in January of 2019. The Act was last referred to the House Subcommittee on Environment and Climate Change on January 25, 2019.