1 Year After Insurrection, Cory Booker Is More Worried Than Ever

NEWARK, NJ — For U.S. Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey, there is an image that stands out amid the maelstrom of chaos of last January, as a mob of people supporting former president Donald Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol: the Confederate flag.

On Thursday, Booker, a Newark resident, delivered remarks on the Senate floor on the anniversary of the January 6 insurrection.

Five people died either before, during or shortly after the event, including one person shot by Capitol police, another from a drug overdose and three who perished from natural causes. Four officers who responded to the attack have died by suicide within seven months.

“We saw a violent attack on this Capitol ignited and incited by demagogues who were trying to spread a lie telling people their votes were stolen by a president who broke with our traditions of a peaceful transfer of power and told his supporters to come to this building,” Booker said.

There were heroic moments, Booker added, such as the actions of the men and women who “stood in the breach” to try to protect himself, other members of Congress, their staffs and any bystanders trapped in the rioting.

But there’s also an image that Booker said he can’t get out of his mind, even a year later. As he retreated to his office, he turned on the television to see what was happening outside.

“I will never forget this moment, as long as I live … when I turned on that screen, the very first thing I saw was the Confederate flag,” Booker recalled. “When I saw that flag, it connected [me] to a current of the dark eddies of our nation's history that have persisted because violent mobs from the beginning of our country have tried to stop our democratic traditions.”

The senator continued:

“We make a big mistake if on this day we just talk about what happened here. All across this country right now there are believers in this democracy that have the same fear that my grandparents did. The same fear that my father did. The same fear that Blacks and whites who joined arms to march across the Edmund Pettis Bridge for voting rights did. This is a cancer; it [has] always been here. And we make a tragic mistake just by talking about this day. Because when I survey the United States of America, I am so worried. There has never been a time in my life, where I've been more worried about this democracy.”

“I stand here today to tell you, why aren't we talking about the fact that in states right now, laws are being passed, specifically designed to disenfranchise people,” Booker continued.

“When early voting started in the fall of 2020 in Georgia, some voters had to wait up to 10 hours to vote in six metro areas at polling places where minorities constituted more than 90 percent of active registered voters,” Booker said. “The average wait time in the evening for those black communities was 51 minutes. In [white] communities, the average wait time was six minutes. Is [this] what we mean when we look at our flag and say liberty and justice for all?”

“Democracy is not certain,” Booker added. “It is not automatic. Democracy is hard. Democracy takes work. Democracy takes sacrifice.”

Watch the senator’s full speech in the video below.

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