President Barack Obama is hosting a meeting with civil rights leaders and Black Lives Matter activists from across the country.
A senior White House official sent The Hill the following statement confirming Thursday's meeting.
“On Thursday afternoon, President Obama will meet with a group of civil rights leaders prior to the annual White House Black History Month reception to discuss a range of issues including the Administration’s efforts on criminal justice reform, building trust between law enforcement and the communities they serve and the president’s priorities during his final year in office.”
The event comes during the final Black History Month of the Obama Administration.
However, Aislinn Pulley, co-founder of BLM Chicago, snubbed the event by declining her invitation.
“As a radical, Black organizer, living and working in a city that is now widely recognized as a symbol of corruption and police violence,” Ms Pulley wrote in an editorial for Truth-Out.org. “I do not feel that a handshake with the president is the best way for me to honor Black History Month or the Black freedom fighters whose labor laid the groundwork for the historic moment we are living in.”
“We assert that true revolutionary and systemic change will ultimately only be brought forth by ordinary working people, students and youth—organizing, marching and taking power from the corrupt elites.”
In October 2015, President Obama defended the social movement after GOP candidates and Fox News criticised the activists for honing in on issues in the black community and claiming they are "anti-police."
“I think everybody understands all lives matter. I think the reason the organizers used the phrase ‘Black Lives Matter’ was not because they were suggesting nobody else’s lives matter,“ he said. ”Rather, what they were suggesting was there is a specific problem that’s happening in the Africa-American community that’s not happening in other communities.”
More follows…
