Today on The 21st, we dedicated the entire hour to Dr. King’s legacy, beginning someone who says King paved the way for her own groundbreaking role as the first Black woman elected to the United States Senate. Former Illinois US Senator Carol Moseley Braun joined us to talk about how King inspired her, voting rights, and more. 

A year after the insurrection, a large majority of Republicans still believe the 2020 election was stolen. They’re seeing this as an opportunity to take control of America’s electoral systems. If Democrats fail to pass electoral reform, they face loss of control of Congress in 2022. We continued our discussion on the insurrection, its lasting impact and current threats to our democracy with a professor of political science at Eastern Illinois University.

We spent our entire show talking about (not only) what happened on January 6, 2021, but also what’s happened in the year since and what the future holds for American democracy. We began with Illinois’ other U-S Senator, Tammy Duckworth. She was in the Capitol complex during the siege last year.

The Illinois General Assembly has approved a plan aimed at making sure people in jails can exercise their right to vote.