Delaware Law Weekly

People in the News
7/31/02

Houghton

Vivian A. Houghton took on racial injustice, polluters, corporate greed and worker exploitation in a brass-knuckle speech for the Green Party's national convention Friday, July 19, in Philadelphia. 

Houghton, a Wilmington attorney at Houghton, Holly & Gray, had a speaking spot as the party's candidate for attorney general in Delaware, where she is running a guerrilla campaign against M. Jane Brady, the two-term Republican incumbent, and Carl Schnee, the Democratic challenger who is also a Duane Morris partner.  

In the speech Houghton said all forms of injustice are linked and must be opposed collectively.  

"Just as the chemical pollution of land, water and air are a crime against the earth's living body, so the disproportionate use of excessive force against African-Americans and other minorities is a cancer that eats away at and robs the U.S.'s status as the so-called land of the free and home of the brave," she said.  

"This means that every time we hear a voice raised against the racial inequity of our criminal justice system, we must add our voices to that voice so it doesn't cry out alone." 

"This means that while companies continue to eliminate millions of jobs through outsourcing, we must stand alongside both organized and unorganized labor as part of the battle against economic priorities that downplay human need and honor only corporate greed...

"We have our work cut out for us.  But if we aren't afraid to work our asses off, and if we aren't afraid to join with each other across color lines and sexual orientation lines and urban-rural lines, if we are not afraid to do these things, then we will be at the forefront of helping to transform America."