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OPEN LETTER TO LAURA WASHINGTON REGARDING A BLACK AGENDA

This is in response to your article written in September 29, 2014 edition of the Sun-Times. My name is Jimmy Lee Tillman, II and I am an independent republican candidate for the US House of Representatives 1st Congressional District with a strong African-American agenda. I have not received much media attention from the mainstream or Black press. 

I have counted on the many voices in the grass root community to talk about my campaign. Some of them are afraid to speak out because of a fear of saying the "R" word. To those who remember, it was the Republican Party that enacted laws that freed the slaves and legislation that allowed us to have civil rights in this country. 

It is important that our community has a voice in the Majority party to make certain that issues relating to us are addressed while President Barak Obama is still in office. Some of these issue are table ready and can be enacted immediately like the Stop Militarization of Law Enforcement Act, HR 40, HR 93,and the re-authorization of 1965 Voting Rights Act.

Other issue that I will bring to Capitol Hill includes a Universal Police Code of Conduct, end the mandatory minimum sentencing requirement, reform of  the immigration policy as it relates to Haiti, increase federal grant funding to HBCU's, support clemency for low level non violent drug offenders ; and remove barriers that prevent non- violent felons from re-uniting with families, receiving Pell Grants or access to public housing.

African Americans in Illinois do have a choice of candidate with an announced Black agenda in the November election. I am not ashamed to be Black or advocate for Blacks. That is how I was raised. I am not ashamed to be a Black republican because I am in the company of Rev. Fredrick Douglass. WEB DuBois, Monroe Trotter, Martin Delaney, Dr.Martin Luther King, Jr., Oscar DePriest, and Edward Brooks.