Congressman Cleo Fields is joining the rest of the Congressional Black Caucus and the NAACP in urging athletes to avoid playing for schools in states which are diluting the power of Black voters through redistricting. Fields, whose own district is on the chopping block in the Louisiana legislature, says Black athletes being recruited by SEC schools, including LSU, need to think twice about attending those schools.
“Do I want to go to a school in a state that actually denies me access to Congress? That denies me access to the State Legislature? Denies me access to city council and school boards? I think that’s a very good question,” Fields said.
Fields says it makes no sense for Black athletes to represent states that want to treat them as second-class citizens off the field.
“You can’t expect parents to feel good, warm and fuzzy about their kids playing on a Saturday night and being denied access to Congress on a Monday, Tuesday through Friday,” Fields said.
Fields says with the Supreme Court watering down the 1965 Voting Rights Act, we’re perilously close to going right back to an ugly time in American history, where Southern states went to great lengths to deny Blacks the right to vote.
“We are refighting battles that we fought 60 years ago, in some of these same SEC states that our college athletes have made billions for,” Fields noted.
The Congressional Black Caucus has also dropped its support of the SCORE Act, which is legislation that supporters say would bring much needed reforms to college athletics. That measure is now considered dead on the House side.