Fifty-four years ago, hundreds of hopeful African Americans assembled at the foot of the Edmund Pettus bridge to begin a march that would result in transformation of American democracy. But first, before they could realize their dream of being able to register to vote, they would be set upon by state troopers who would severely beat many of them. They would need to go to court to get the right to peacefully protest the unlawful acts and daily indignities that kept them from registering to vote. Their sacrifice would shame the country and spur President Lyndon Johnson to introduce the Voting Rights Act of 1965 who borrowed the words of Martin Luther King, Jr by ending his speech introducing the bill stating “And we shall overcome.” Five months after its introduction, the Voting Rights Act became law and transformed American democracy.
In 2013, the United States Supreme Court, in Shelby County v. Holder, halted the work of the VRA that ensured that jurisdictions with a history of discrimination would have to seek federal approval before implementing any voting change. Instead, the Court ignored the voluminous record that Congress had amassed making the case for the continuation of one of the most important provisions of the Voting Rights Act. Immediately following the Shelby County decision, states with a significant record of passing discriminatory voting laws began enacting such laws once again: Texas, North Carolina, Georgia. Since 2013, Members of Congress have introduced the legislation to correct wrong that the Supreme Court has perpetrated when it took away one of the most significant protections that Congress has ever enacted. On February 26, Members of Congress once again introduced the Voting Rights Advancement Act. As I stood with them as they called on their colleagues to restore the full protections of the Voting Rights Act, I couldn’t help but look at Representative John Lewis and wonder what he was thinking. How frustrating and disappointing it must be for him that fifty-four years after he was severely beaten in his fight for the right to vote for all citizens “regardless of race, color or previous condition of servitude” to quote the 15th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, he was still fighting this battle. In my humble opinion, our country has let this great man down.
This weekend, I will once again join with those who will reenact that fateful march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. I will once again try to imagine how terrified but determined those who over fifty years ago lined up to begin a journey to register to vote, knowing that they were putting their lives at risk yet willing to do so because the prize was the most fundamental right in any democracy, the right to vote. Today, the laws that suppress the vote of racial and ethnic minorities are not as explicit as those in the past, the suppression is disguised in practices and procedures that seem innocuous: voter ID laws, exact-match voter registration laws, closure and consolidation of voting precincts; and purging of voters who have not voted in recent elections. Yet, these laws have a similarly suppressive impact on minority voters, keeping many from being able to vote.
It is my hope that during next year’s 55th Anniversary commemorating the brave men, women and children who began the march from Selma to Montgomery to insist on their right to vote, we would be celebrating the passage of legislation restoring the full protections of the Voting Rights Act. Our democracy needed a robust Voting Rights Act in 1965 and it continues to do so today. I urge you all to call your member of Congress and demand that they do the right thing in memory of all of those who put their lives on the line to ensure that the right to vote is made available to all.
Marcia Johnson-Blanco is the Co-Director of the Voting Rights Project at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.
