Emanuel Cleaver · TranslatePolitics.com

House of Representatives

Honoring the 158th Anniversary of the 14th Amendment

2026-07-15

“I want to say that the 14th Amendment is important. I am part of a group that wants to defend it. I was born in the Jim Crow South. I marched with Martin Luther King Jr. I want America to follow the 14th Amendment. I believe the 14th Amendment is important for civil rights. I think it is important for voting rights, housing rights, and other rights. The 14th Amendment protects many people. I want to protect it. We need to keep fighting for it.”

Official Congressional Record

Mr. Speaker, I rise today as the proud co-chair of the Defend the 14th Amendment Task Force because I believe in one simple truth: The 14th Amendment is now under siege. For more than 150 years this amendment has stood as one of the greatest promises our Nation has ever made: That every person born in this country is entitled to equal protection under the law and that no government may deny anyone due process simply because of who they are or where they were an immigrant from. It was born from one of the darkest chapters in American history. After slavery ended, our Nation faced a choice: We could preserve injustice under a different name, or we could expand the promise of freedom. The 14th Amendment was our answer. It declared boldly that citizenship could not be rationed, equality could not be optional, and liberty belonged to all of us. Today, that promise is being tested. This administration has made no secret of its willingness to chip away at the constitutional protections generations of Americans have fought, marched, bled, and even died to secure. They are using every tool at their disposal to weaken the very rights that safeguard us all. For me, this fight is deeply personal. I was born in the Jim Crow South, little place called Waxahachie, Texas. I came of age in a nation where equal protection existed only on paper long before it existed in practice. I marched with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference starting when I was 15 years old. The SCLC was led by a young preacher by the name of Martin Luther King, Jr. I marched because I believed America could become what it claimed to be. I believed that the Constitution should protect every citizen equally. I witnessed firsthand what happens when governments decide some people deserve fewer rights than others. The progress we celebrate today did not happen by accident. It happened because brave Americans demanded that the 14th Amendment finally be honored. It was the Equal Protection Clause that became the constitutional foundation for Brown v. Board of Education, ending legally sanctioned segregation in our public schools. It was the 14th Amendment that strengthened the fight against discriminatory voting laws, housing discrimination, and unequal treatment in employment. It was the 14th Amendment that has protected interracial marriage, expanded equality for women, safeguarded the rights of people with disabilities, and affirmed the dignity of LGBTQ Americans. Time and time again, when our Nation has taken a step toward justice, it has done so because someone stood up and insisted that the words of the 14th Amendment actually meant what they say. That is why attack of any kind on equal protection and due process are not isolated legal disputes. They are attacks on the very foundation of modern civil rights. They are attacks on the constitutional principle that tell every child they matter before the law. They are the attacks on the guarantees that protect workers from exploitation, families from discrimination, religious liberty, voting rights, and the simple expectation that government must treat people fairly. When government weakens these protections for one group, it weakens them for everyone. History teaches us that constitutional rights are rarely lost all at once. They are chipped away slowly, one exception, one excuse, one precedent at a time until Americans wake up and discover that what once seemed guaranteed has quietly disappeared. We cannot allow this to happen. Our constituents know what is at stake. They understand that the promise of America has been bigger than politics. They know that the Constitution belongs to every American, not just those in power. As the co-chair of the 14th Amendment Task Force, I stand with my colleagues in defense of one of the most important guarantees ever written into our Constitution. We will defend equal protection. We will defend due process. We will defend, yes, birthright citizenship. We will continue fighting until the promise of the 14th Amendment is not merely something we celebrate in history books, but something that every American can experience in their daily lives. The struggle to perfect our Union has never been easy, but every generation is called to protect the freedoms it inherited. Now, it is our turn.

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