Source: United States House of Representatives – Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (MA-07)
Honoring Rev. Jackson, Pressley Joined the Somerville Department of Racial and Social Justice, Community Leaders and Members for Civil Rights Discussion
“We are confronted daily with a layered, unrelenting, legislated assault on Black people, on Black bodies, on Black votes, on Black power, on Black history, on Black progress. And we have to name it.”
SOMERVILLE, MA – This week, Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley joined community leaders and members for a panel discussion hosted by the Somerville Department of Racial and Social Justice and the NAACP Mystic Valley Branch to explore the evolution of civil rights advocacy across generations and reflect on how it informs the present-day fight to build a more just future. Rep. Pressley spoke of the inspiration and impact of her parents in coming to this work, her fight to combat systemic anti-Blackness, and her push to advance an affirmative civil rights agenda amid Trump’s attacks.
Titled “Lessons from the Past: Civil Rights Movement Then & Now,” the panel discussion entailed an insightful conversation between Rep. Pressley, Courtney Henderson, Co-President of the League of Women Voters of Massachusetts, Dr. Michael Curry, President & CEO of the Massachusetts League of Community Health Centers, and Catherine Nakato, Deputy Director of the Somerville Department of Racial and Social Justice.
The panel was organized with the partnership of Tufts University, the NAACP of Mystic Valley, the City of Somerville, and Mayor of Somerville Jake Wilson.
A transcript of an excerpt of Congresswoman Pressley’s remarks at the panel discussion is available below, and the video is available here.
Transcript: Pressley Underscores Commitment to Fight Anti-Blackness, Emphasizes How Civil Rights Movement Shapes Racial Justice Work Today
Somerville, MAFebruary 18, 2026
CATHERINE NAKATO: Thinking about now, modern day, what does protecting and fighting for civil rights look like in your daily work?
REP. AYANNA PRESSLEY: Since you’ve invited me here, you’ve invited me here to be me.
CATHERINE: Correct.
REP. PRESSLEY: And since this is Black History Month, I just want to take a moment while I acknowledge my commitment to do the work of safety and liberation of all marginalized people—I just want to talk about Black folks for a moment.
Because in this moment, what I see as my responsibility, you know, I revisit the words of Anna Julia Cooper often, who said, “When and where I enter, the entire race enters – human race – with me.”
As a Black woman, we have been the liberators, the patriots, the defenders of democracy, the truth tellers, the justice seekers, the table shakers, the movement builders. I was sharing with someone earlier today when someone they were asking me, “Can you expound upon what you mean when you say ‘anti-Blackness with this Administration is on steroids’?”
I have too many examples to enumerate. I think the problem is that we actually don’t name anti-Blackness, it is conflated with racism. And so when you have a white supremacist – you know, a chief of white supremacy – Occupant in the Oval Office emboldening white supremacy, and we can talk about the ways in which he is xenophobic, and anti-woman and anti-LGBTQ and trans, very few people will name anti-Black.
But pay attention. Pay attention, because we are navigating, we are confronted daily with a layered, unrelenting, legislated assault on Black people, on Black bodies, on Black votes, on Black power, on Black history, on Black progress. And we have to name it.
Because what’s happened is that the codified harm to Black folk in budgets, the legislative harm to Black folks is so systemic, so unrelenting, that it is unremarkable to people.
But Black women are still dying of sepsis in parking lots because someone doesn’t believe their pain or the laws won’t allow them to treat them and to intervene. Black men are still being strung up from trees. Black voters are still being denied access to the ballot. Black men still have the shortest life expectancy. Black home ownership is still the lowest that it’s been in six decades.
So in this moment, I feel a tremendous responsibility—one, to be a truth teller, two, to make sure that these harms are not normalized.
We have extended a cultural grace to the occupant of the Oval Office by saying that’s just him being him, and that’s just more bluster. That’s—of course, he’s hateful and harmful. That’s what he does. But your silence is not going to save you. It is not going to save any of us.
We have to resist, reject, condemn. And policy is my love language, because every harm done to Black folk and marginalized people was legislated. It wasn’t something that just like happened in the ether.
So I remain focused on how to undo centuries of harm, how to mitigate active harm in this moment, while still advancing an affirmative vision.
And I’ll close on this. I talk often about how, in that speech that Dr. King gave at the March on Washington for jobs and freedom, that was not the speech that he was supposed to give. That while he could have continued to sit in the inequities and disparities and injustices, he gave voice to a dream. And in a fascist state, they don’t want you to dream. Dreams are not hokey. The dream of the slave is what kept them alive. Freedom.
So in order to do radical work, we must first have a radical dream. And so, while I’m doing the active work of mitigating harm, I still am seeking to advance an affirmative vision.
So, when I reintroduced Reparations, people said, “Why would you do that? Dems don’t – you don’t even have all the Dems supporting that. You don’t have a majority in the House, the Senate, the White House. This is—you know, what we’re living in. Why would you do that?”
I said this is a moment of anti-Blackness on steroids. And so, I’m going to unapologetically pro-Black. That’s why I’m doing it.
So we still have to do the affirmative work, and I’ll get into some policies and stuff later, but that’s what I see as my role in this moment is—it’s to not allow the suffering of Black folks to be so normalized that it is no longer called out to be confronted, and that we enlist everyone actively as co- conspirators in the work of our safety and our freedom, because we have liberated everyone else.
###