President Joe Biden is set to outline a series of plans to advance the cause of racial equality and ending police brutality of Black Americans.
“America has never lived up to its founding promise of equality for all, but we’ve never stopped trying,” Mr. Biden said on Twitter on Jan. 26. “Today, I’ll take action to advance racial equity and push us closer to that more perfect union we’ve always strived to be.”
According to the New York Times, Biden is expected
to release executive actions on prison reform, affordable housing, and police reform that includes establishing a national commission to examine the use of excessive force by law enforcement officials.Another executive order Biden is expected to sign will ban the transfer of military equipment to local police departments, which was put in place during the Obama Administration and rolled back during the Trump presidency.
Police brutality was a central focus of 2020 after the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor led to mass protests against police brutality and Called for defunding the police to boost social services. Naturally, police across the country didn’t take protests well as they began harming protesters while still killing
Black men and women.Progressive voters and Black Americans voted for Biden and Harris in the hopes that they would change things. Biden has brought together the most diverse cabinet in U.S. history and if a Supreme Court spot opens during his presidency, he has committed to putting a Black woman in the seat.
Despite those early moves being hailed as a new day, a bevy of civil rights groups have said they will keep the pressure on the Biden-Harris Administration.
“I want us to make sure that [Biden] delivers,” Cora Masters Barry, chief executive of the Recreation Wish List Committee, said according to the Washington Post. “If the president does not deliver, she warned, “he’s going to have hell on his hands.”