More than 70 black business executives have released a statement urging corporations to oppose what they call « voter suppression » in Georgia.
Even though Georgia’s recently-signed election integrity law applies to everyone in the state and even has overwhelming support among black voters, more than 70 black business executives released a joint statement on Wednesday urging corporations to publicly oppose what they describe as a kind of voter suppression. According to The New York Times, Kenneth Chenault, a former chief executive at American Express, and Kenneth Frazier, the chief executive of Merck, spearheaded the response to Georiga’s new law and urged corporations to strongly and forcefully oppose the legislation. “There is no middle ground here,” Chenault said. “You either are for more people voting, or you want to suppress the vote.” “This impacts all Americans, but we also need to acknowledge the history of voting rights for African-Americans,” he added. “And as African-American executives in corporate America, what we were saying is we want corporate America to understand that, and we want them to work with us.” Frazier said he began to pay attention to the situation in Georgia after Republican Gov. Brian Kemp signed the bill into law.
