Today, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) joined The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and 56 other national and state organizations urging U.S. Attorney General William Barr and FBI Director Christopher Wray to protect Americans from the threat of white supremacists as early in-person voting continues in several states.
“Within minutes of the President calling on the Proud Boys to ‘stand back and stand by’ during the debate last week, members and supporters of this virulently anti-Muslim, anti-Semitic, misogynistic, anti-immigrant and racist gang celebrated the president’s words as a call to action. And when the president encouraged his supporters ‘to go into the polls and watch very carefully,’ many heard a call for voter intimidation, a fear bolstered by the actions of armed white right-wing militias that have garnered support from the president in recent months as they confronted anti-racist protesters,” the groups wrote in their letter to Barr and Wray.
Read the full letter here.
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Founded in 1940, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) is the nation’s first civil and human rights law organization. LDF has been completely separate from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) since 1957—although LDF was originally founded by the NAACP and shares its commitment to equal rights. LDF’s Thurgood Marshall Institute is a multi-disciplinary and collaborative hub within LDF that launches targeted campaigns and undertakes innovative research to shape the civil rights narrative. In media attributions, please refer to us as the NAACP Legal Defense Fund or LDF.
