U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) filled the Ritz Carlton banquet hall on Thursday, June 22 for the 81st annual St. Louis County NAACP Freedom Fund Leadership Dinner.
Waters, a Kinloch native, received a Margaret Bush Wilson Lifetime Achievement Award, along with former Missouri Governor Bob Holden.
John Gaskin, III, Freedom Fund dinner chair, said that Waters has led the way in “opposing the oppressive and the discriminatory practices and language of both candidate and President Donald J. Trump.”
Gaskin, who also serves on the NAACP’s National Board of Directors, said her life’s work speaks directly to the event theme, “Rise Together.”
During her keynote remarks, Waters said rising together is something everyone can do, by resisting injustice of current administration.
“As a people and community, we cannot sit back and allow our country to be destroyed by Donald Trump,” Waters said. “Our resolve must be to unite and fight so that we can ‘rise together.’ And, in the words of the millennials, ‘Stay Woke.’”
She said incompetent millionaires and billionaires, white supremacists and Jim Crow-era throwbacks are included in Trump’s cabinet and leadership team, including Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
“This attorney general wants to do away with everything that we have tried to do. He wants to reinstate mandatory minimum sentencing all over again,” Waters said.
“Jeff Sessions has the audacity to start rolling back criminal justice reforms while he, Donald Trump, Mike Pence and others had time to hire personal lawyers because they are embroiled in their own legal issues related to the Russia investigation. If Jeff Sessions wants to get tough on crime, he should start right in the White House.”
Waters said she is looking forward to U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary and retired neurosurgeon Dr. Ben Carson coming before the Financial Services Committee, of which she is the ranking member. Carson’s comments that poverty was “a state of mind” drew strong criticism.
“Putting him in charge of a complex federal agency responsible for ensuring access to safe, decent and affordable housing for our nation’s most vulnerable households makes absolutely no sense,” Waters said.
“I’ve had some African Americans say, ‘Don’t be too hard on him when he comes before your committee.’ I’m going to take him apart.”
She has major concerns about Trump’s staggering proposed budget cuts to Medicaid, food stamps, housing, earned income and child tax credits, funding for the disabled and veterans, as well as efforts to restore predatory banking practices and undermine consumer protections.
Waters sees her role in this unprecedented time in history is “opposing the most unqualified, the most dishonorable man to ever serve in the office of the president – Donald Trump.”
“Donald Trump is a bully, he’s a demagogue and a disgusting and indecent man who has no genuine concern for the African-Americans community and all they have contributed to this country,” Waters said.
“As Donald Trump parades around this country, claiming that he, and he alone, will make American great again – what he really needs to understand is that African Americans have already done more to make this country great than he ever will.”
Waters share the St. Louis County NAACP Margaret Bush Wilson Lifetime Achiever award with Former Missouri Governor Bob Holden.
The St. Louis County NAACP presented Steve and Holly Cousins with the Frankie M. Freeman/Norman R. Seay Commitment to St. Louis Award. The organization The Links, Inc. received the Daisy Bates Commitment to Education Award. The 2017 Minority Entrepreneur of the Year Award was presented to James “Jimmy” Williams Jr., president of Estel Foods. The Medgar Wiley Evers Legal Advocacy Award was presented to attorney Ronald Norwood, a partner at Lewis Rice, LLP. Lodging Hospitality Management received the Corporate Community Partner of the Year award.
Five Legacy Award recipients were honored: Laurna Godwin, co-founder of Vector Communications; Jason Hall, a civic entrepreneur and founder of Missouri Technology Corporation; state Sen. Gina Walsh who represents North St. Louis County; Ken Franklin, vice president of governmental relations at Bi-State Development; and Tina Clark-Scott, assistant superintendent of Curriculum, Instruction and Support Services in the Normandy Schools Collaborative. Jackie Hill Crawford received the President’s Award for Member of the Year.
Esther Haywood, president of the St. Louis County NAACP, said all of the night’s honorees, “Your accomplishments and commitment to inclusion and equity make us all stronger.”
