(TRENTON) – Assembly Majority Conference Leader Gordon Johnson (D-Bergen) released the following statement Thursday on Gov. Chris Christie’s comment that, “People would have been happy to have a referendum on civil rights rather than fighting and dying in the streets in the South.”:
“Gov. Christie is displaying a lack of knowledge about the civil rights movement when he implies everything would have turned out just great if equality for all Americans had simply been put on the ballot.
“The governor apparently doesn’t even understand that minorities likely would have been blocked from voting on a civil rights referendum in the South in the 1960s. You know why? Because they didn’t have civil rights!
“Courageous Americans did the right thing when they fought the battle for civil rights. The governor needs to follow their lead.”