Radio host Joe Madison is currently a week into his hunger strike after announcing on Nov 8. that he’d be abstaining from eating in protest of the voting rights bill not getting passed in the Senate. The National Radio Hall of Fame announcer hosts his own show on SiriusXM Urban View called “Joe Madison – The Black Eagle.”
Madison made the announcement on his website in reaction to Senate Republicans blocking the beginning of debate on a voting rights act named after late civil rights icon and Congressman John Lewis earlier this month.
“As a political protest, I am beginning a hunger strike today by abstaining from eating any solid food until Congress passes, and President Biden signs, the Freedom to Vote Act or the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. And I repeat, just as food is necessary to sustain life, the right to vote is necessary to sustain democracy,” he wrote.
The bill gained the support of Republican Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Democrat Joe Manchin of West Virginia, but didn’t reach the 60 votes it needed to overcome a Republican filibuster. Both bills were recently passed by the House of Representatives but both have stalled in the Senate.
“It is what drives me and inspires me. So I have begun this hunger strike, I should say this, in solidarity — let me repeat, in solidarity — with all those who are calling on Congress and the President of the United States to protect our voting rights. I am here to say, at some point we’ve got to change these moments into movements. And the difference between a moment and a movement is sacrifice. And although this is a moral as well as political cause for me, it is a component of a much larger movement,” he wrote.
Take a listen as Madison discussed his hunger strike.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyS3EtjipEY[/embedyt]
