I fought for civil rights. It is offensive to compare it to transgender fight.
Let us be clear: HB2 cannot be compared to the injustice of Jim Crow. In fact, it is insulting to liken African-Americans’ continuing struggle for equality in America to the liberals’ attempt to alter society’s accepted norms.
Recently, U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch compared HB2 to Jim Crow. Jim Crow laws were put into place to keep an entire race positioned as second-class citizens. HB2 simply says that men and women should use the restroom of their biological sex in government buildings and schools. This comparison is highly offensive and utterly disrespectful to those families and individuals who have shed blood and lost lives to advance the cause of civil rights. I take this as a personal slap in the face because I was an active participant in the civil rights movement.
In 1960, I participated in the sit-in at the Woolworth Diner in Greensboro. As a student attending North Carolina A&T University, I experienced the cruel, vicious reality of segregation first hand.
Clarence Henderson is chairman of the North Carolina Martin Luther King, Jr. Commission. He lives in High Point.
This story was originally published May 20, 2016 at 11:12 AM with the headline "I fought for civil rights. It is offensive to compare it to transgender fight.."