Joyce Beatty Draws Comparison Between Her Arrest and MLK Jr.'s

Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-OH), who was arrested in the Hart Senate Office Building by Capitol Police this week after she led a protest into the building, drew a comparison between her arrest and the arrest of civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr.

According to Beatty, who made remarks following her arrest on SiriusXM Urban View’s The Joe Madison Show, the arrest was made “because it’s about voting rights,” adding that “voting rights is our power.”

“This was in the same spirit that Fannie Lou Hamer and John Lewis and others marched, sang, protested, and what happened? They got America’s attention,” Beatty told host Joe Madison. “More people started joining them.”

Beatty said she, along with others who joined in on the protest Thursday, believed it was “important” to “demonstrate our power” and to “educate the American people that this is a big issue, especially for those of us who are the most disenfranchised and demonstrated against.”

Beatty, who serves as head of the Congressional Black Caucus, also called the arrest “ironic,” saying “we were arrested quickly for violating the rule that it was illegal to protest as we were doing after being warned to stop.”

Beatty said of the protest and subsequent arrest:

Again, here we are with the disparities of treatment with, you know, less than 100 people. But look at our history. This is the same thing that has happened to Martin Luther King and all of those, because it’s about voting rights. And voting rights is our power.

“You’re not gonna convince me that those individuals, specifically my Republican colleagues, don’t realize that voter suppression across the country, even in our home state, controls us and keeps us locked down,” Beatty added.

Beatty concluded the segment on her arrest by saying, “If it can happen to me, think about what can happen to all of those other individuals.”

On Thursday, Beatty was seen in a number of photos being escorted out of the Hart Senate building after she and other activists entered and began chanting, “end the filibuster!”