Faith leaders call Braun’s Beckwith comments inadequate
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — The leader of Concerned Clergy of Indianapolis on Thursday said he’s considering further protests over what he calls racist comments from Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith.
Beckwith ignited a storm of controversy one week ago when he posted a video on his official X account in which he called the Three-Fifths Compromise “a great move” that ensured the end of slavery by limiting the political power of slaveholding southern states. The post followed two hours of emotional debate in the state Senate over a bill to dismantle diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, programs in which Democrats at one point referenced the Three-Fifths Compromise.
The term refers to a provision the Framers included in the original text of the U.S. Constitution that counted three-fifths of all enslaved people toward a state’s population for the purposes of allocating seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. Southern states at the time pushed to have all enslaved people counted so they could have more seats in Congress, while northern states tried to have only free inhabitants counted. The Fourteenth Amendment eliminated the provision in 1868…