Sometimes these accomplishments are overlooked due to some bad press in the media, but Cynthia McKinney continues to move forward. The First time I heard about Ms. McKinney, was in 2006. She was accused of hitting a Capitol Hill police officer who didn’t recognize her as member of Congress. He tried to stop her from entering a Capitol office building and she struck him with her cell phone. She said it was case of racial profiling and she only struck the officer after he grabbed her arm, the officer maintained she didn’t show her I.D, Cynthia McKinney apologized, the situation was dismissed.
The incident wasn’t the first and wouldn’t be the last time the Congresswoman would tussle with authority. In one way or another Cynthia McKinney professional and personal life has been defined by her battles. In some way, we can all judge ourselves on that premise, but what makes Cynthia McKinney case a little special is not just the fight, but the opponent. Think Keanu Reeves against the Matrix and maybe you can grasp the importance of the fight. Remember “Neo” didn’t choose to fight the war against “evil”, the fight chose him!
Cynthia McKinney was born in Atlanta Georgia. She is the daughter of Leola McKinney a retired nurse, and Bill McKinney a former Atlanta Police Officer and Congressman. She credits her father Bill McKinney as her mentor and the reason she fights the injustice of the world.
“First of all I have to say, I’ve always been involved in politics, because as a child of the civil rights movement, I’ve seen what politics can do, I’ve seen what government can do. My father participated in Civil Rights demonstrations all across the south and when those Civil Rights demonstrations came to Atlanta Georgia then I participated in them too. My father also was one of the first black police officers in the city of Atlanta and he would challenge the personal indignities he had to suffer everyday.”