“It seems as if he was predestined to receive something like this.”
Longtime Congressman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., received one of the highest civilian honors on Thursday when President Joe Biden awarded him the Presidential Citizens Medal.
Closing out the final days of his term, which ends on Jan. 20, Biden presented Thompson, 76, with the prestigious presidential award during a White House ceremony held in the East Room. For Thompson, who has been in Congress for more than 30 years and before that, served in local government, the presidential honor is years in the making.
Thompson’s stature as the former chairman of the Jan. 6 House Select Committee and House Committee on Homeland Security (the first Black American to hold the position) has earned him much praise on Capitol Hill. However his friends and colleagues say the totality of his work as a public servant makes him that much more deserving.
“Long before he was the [Jan. 6] Select Committee chairman and chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, Congressman Thompson fought for voting rights in Mississippi in the 1960s,” said Hope Goins, who has worked as one of Thompson’s top staffers for 18 years. “He’s been defending democracy even before he was an elected official.”
Thompson, who worked with civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer on her unsuccessful 1964 bid for Congress before she was barred from the ballot, joined the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) as a young HBCU student at Tougaloo College, where he worked to register people to vote. Through his activism, he also rubbed shoulders with civil rights leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and John Lewis, who later served alongside Thompson in Congress.
“Those things already set [Bennie Thompson] up to look at democracy through the lens of all, not just a few,” Goins told theGrio. She added, “It seems as if he was predestined to receive something like this.”
Thompson’s dedication to advancing civil rights for Black Mississippians during a time of deep racial oppression and tension would later lead to him defending the U.S. Constitution for all Americans. When he and the bipartisan Jan. 6 committee investigated how the actions of President-elect Donald Trump led to a violent attack on the U.S. Capitol by a mob of his supporters at the end of Trump’s first term, it was an unprecedented moment in American history.
“You saw, like millions of other people with your own eyes, people breaking into the Capitol, breaking glass, breaking doors. You saw officers being sprayed with bear spray. You saw law enforcement people being assaulted,” Thompson recalled in a previous interview with theGrio last month. He added, “Because of Jan. 6, several of them died.”
The work of the Jan. 6 committee “speaks for itself” Thompson told theGrio, and it preceded eventual federal criminal charges against Trump, which have since been dismissed as a result of his 2024 presidential election victory against Vice President Kamala Harris. Though Trump ultimately evaded legal accountability, Thompson, alongside the Jan. 6 Select Committee’s vice chair, former Rep. Liz Cheney (who also received the Citizens Medal on Thursday), has been praised as a brave defender of America’s democracy and helping to document the horrors of Jan. 6.
“As America reeled from an unprecedented attack on our democracy, Rep. Thompson led the bipartisan House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th attack on the United States Capitol – a necessary asset in Congress’ efforts to uncover the truth behind that dark day and bring all those behind it to justice,” said U.S. Rep. Yvette Clarke, D-N.Y., who works alongside Thompson on the Homeland Security Committee and as a member of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC).
The incoming CBC chairwoman told theGrio, “Bennie has my sincere congratulations on this deeply deserved commendation, as well as my heartfelt gratitude for his selfless service to our nation.”
In a statement, Congressman Thompson said he was “honored” to receive the Presidential Citizens Medal from President Biden.
“I have had an unwavering commitment to upholding the Constitution and defending democracy,” said Thompson. “Throughout my nearly six decades as a public servant, whether on the local or federal level, I have worked to ensure that democratic principles work for all Americans, not just a select few.”
Goins, who currently serves as Thompson’s staff director on Homeland Security, noted that as a member of Congress and as former chair and current ranking member of Homeland Security over the last few decades, Thompson has championed equity for Black and brown communities. The Mississippi lawmaker pursued what was just, whether it be federal services for those impacted by natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina, or those victimized by violent extremism like the horrific truck attack that occurred on New Year’s Day in New Orleans.
Goins said that most of all, Thompson dedicated his time in office to being “a champion for people having a seat at the table,” including herself. Reflecting on her many years working for the senior congressman, she said the greatest lesson she learned from her boss is to “have a perspective, listen to different views, and value them.”
“That is what America is. Everybody’s American experience is a lived experience, and they are vastly different,” she told theGrio.
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