"I am one of those individuals who walked in back doors because the law said I had to," he said in his speech Aug. 12, while recalling the bravery and dignity of the civil rights movement.
"I saw men and women stand with courage and integrity and class, and they changed the world," he said. "They marched peacefully, and Dr. King stood for that which was peaceful."
"They didn't beg for anything. They didn't beg for citizenship--they demanded it," he said. "They did it by standing like men and women of integrity."
In the wake of civil unrest in many U.S. cities, DeBerry condemned what he called defenses of rioting, looting, and violence in the name of anti-racism during his August speech.
"You're telling me that somebody has the right to throw feces and urine in the faces of those that we as taxpayers pay to protect us? And that's okay?" he asked. "What has happened to us?!"
DeBerry says he is running as an independent in the November election. Although the deadline to do so had already passed by when he was removed from the Democratic ticket, fellow legislators passed a measure to allow him to be listed on ballots as a political independent and not have to resort to a write-in campaign.
He was one of more than 100 Democrats at the federal, state, and local levels who recently asked the platform committee of the Democratic National Convention to moderate the abortion language in the party's platform.
The 2020 draft platform of the party calls for taxpayer-funded abortion and restoring federal funding of Planned Parenthood.
Although Trump promised to defund Planned Parenthood, the nation's largest abortion provider, Congress failed to pass legislation doing so. Planned Parenthood did voluntarily withdraw from the federal Title X family planning program after the Trump administration tightened regulations that barred recipients from referring for abortions or being co-located with abortion clinics.
In their August 14 letter, DeBerry and other Democratic officials said the party's support for late-term abortion will "push many voters into the arms of the Republican Party."
All 2020 Democratic presidential candidates supported taxpayer-funded abortion. Several candidates said that women should be able to choose abortion up until the point of birth, and that there was not room in the party for pro-lifers.
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DeBerry said that the leadership in the Democratic Party is excluding pro-lifers to the party's detriment.
"It's a shame that they have handed all the moral, spiritual, social, and conservative issues on a silver platter over to the Republicans and said we don't want to have nothing to do with them," he told CNA.
"How are you enlarging the tent when you're throwing people out when they don't walk the chalk line? When they don't do exactly as they're told?" DeBerry told CNA. "And that's where the Democrats are right now."
"I think that the candidate at the top of the ticket who said if you don't vote Democrat, then you're not Black-I think that goes to the heart of the issue," he said.
In May, Joe Biden told the radio show The Breakfast Club that "If you have a problem figuring out whether you're for me or Trump then you ain't black." Biden later said of his remarks that he "shouldn't have been such a wise guy."
Matt Hadro was the political editor at Catholic News Agency through October 2021. He previously worked as CNA senior D.C. correspondent and as a press secretary for U.S. Congressman Chris Smith.