Al Green is the representative from Texas’s 9th congressional district, throughout his congressional tenure, he has focused on issues impacting the poor and minorities such as fair housing, fair hiring practices and abortion rights.

Green, 77, has mobility issues and is seldom seen without his trademark cane. The human rights warrior waved his cane and shouted truth to power when President Donald Trump delivered a speech to a joint session of Congress in early March. Thank God someone had the moral integrity to interrupt Trump’s litany of lies and obscenities.

Green transformed his walking cane, a symbol of weakness and infirmity, into a symbol of power and strength. He reminded me of Moses waving his rod to part the Red Sea.

But fervent evangelical and MAGA firebrand Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert had a different take. She said Green didn’t need the cane to walk, adding the racist insult, “If that gold-plated cane isn’t a pimp cane, I don’t know what is.”

Recently GOP Rep. Diana Harshbarger said, “Boy, put that cane… He does not need that cane. That cane is a prop. I swear it’s not real. It may hold a gun inside.”

MAGA Republicans don’t even try to hide their blatant racism: they call an elderly statesman a “boy”, accuse him of faking his need for a cane, and imply he may be hiding a gun inside it.

We need a legion of courageous warriors like Green to speak truth to power and defeat the fascist Trump and his racist MAGA followers.