26 Jan 2006 Project 21 Press Release: Black Activists Condemn Senator Salazar for Calling Justice Thomas an “Abomination”

As Americans prepare to observe Black History Month, members of the black leadership network Project 21 are condemning U.S. Senator Ken Salazar (D-CO) for calling Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas an “abomination.”

During a teleconference with reporters on January 25 to discuss the current Senate debate over Judge Samuel A. Alito’s nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court, the Rocky Mountain News reported that Senator Salazar said, “I think [Justice Thomas] is an abomination when you contrast him to the leadership and principles of someone like Thurgood Marshall.”

Project 21 member Mychal Massie commented: “Clarence Thomas rose up from poverty and racism in the rural Jim Crow South to sit on our highest court.  It is a height only one other black man has reached in our nation’s history.  To dismiss Justice Thomas as an abomination is disrespectful to him as a man and to blacks everywhere.  It implies that Justice Thomas and his achievements can be overlooked because they don’t conform with the preconceived notions that Senator Salazar and his liberal colleagues seem to have for black Americans.  On the verge of Black History Month, Senator Salazar is essentially telling us that Clarence Thomas’s rise from poverty to the U.S. Supreme Court can be discounted simply because he is conservative.”

For more information, contact David Almasi at (202) 507-6398 x11 or [email protected], or visit Project 21’s website at http://www.project21.org/P21Index.html. New Visions Commentaries can be found at https://nationalcenter.org/P21NewVisions.html.