Attorney General Eric Holder responded Tuesday at a House Appropriations subcommittee hearing to allegations that the Justice Department has gone easy on the Black Panthers in investigating whether they engaged in voter intimidation during the 2008 election,
The Hill reports.
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| Eric Holder |
Rep. John Culberson, R-Texas, accused the Justice Department of failing to cooperate with a Civil Rights Commission inquiry into an incident in which Black Panthers in intimidating outfits and wielding clubs stood outside a Philadelphia polling place.
Holder contradicted Culberson after the congressman read a comment in which former Democratic activist Bartle Bull called the incident the most serious act of voter intimidation he witnessed in his career.
"Think about that," Holder said. "When you compare what people endured in the South in the '60s to try to get the right to vote for African-Americans, to compare what people subjected to that with what happened in Philadelphia, which was inappropriate.
"I think that does a great disservice to people who put their lives on the line for my people.”