In a Sunday address on racial inequality delivered at the Edward Kennedy Institute in Boston, Sen. Elizabeth Warren called for broad policing reform and likened the current Black Lives Matter movement to the civil rights movement of the 1960s, reports The Washington Post.

"None of us can ignore what is happening in this country. Not when our black friends, family, neighbors literally fear dying in the streets. This is the reality all of us must confront, as uncomfortable and ugly as that reality may be. It comes to us to once again affirm that black lives matter, that black citizens matter, that black families matter."

In her speech, Warren drew direct parallels between the civil rights movement and what WaPo calls "the current anti-police-brutality movement," and linked issues of economic inequality with "systemic racism":

"Economic justice is not — and has never been — sufficient to ensure racial justice. Owning a home won’t stop someone from burning a cross on the front lawn. Admission to a school won’t prevent a beating on the sidewalk outside. The tools of oppression were woven together, and the civil rights struggle was fought against that oppression wherever it was found — against violence, against the denial of voting rights and against economic injustice."

Black Lives Matter leaders were greatly pleased. DeRay Mckesson declared,

"Senator Warren's speech clearly and powerfully calls into question America's commitment to black lives by highlighting the role that structural racism has played and continues to play with regard to housing discrimination and voting rights. And Warren, better than any political leader I've yet heard, understands the protests as a matter of life or death — that the American dream has been sustained by an intentional violence and that the uprisings have been the result of years of lived trauma."

"We’ve seen sickening videos of unarmed, black Americans cut down by bullets, choked to death while gasping for air — their lives ended by those who are sworn to protect them. Peaceful, unarmed protesters have been beaten. Journalists have been jailed. And, in some cities, white vigilantes with weapons freely walk the streets. And it’s not just about law enforcement either. Just look to the terrorism this summer at Emanuel AME Church [in Charleston, S.C.]. We must be honest: 50 years after John Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. spoke out, violence against African Americans has not disappeared."

"It is a tragedy when any American cannot trust those who have sworn to protect and serve," Warren said of the police. "This pervasive and persistent distrust isn’t based on myths. It is grounded in the reality of unjustified violence."

Let's have an honest discussion about the myths of and reality of racial violence, shall we Ms. Warren?