It’s hard to believe that over a half century has passed since President Lyndon Baines Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act, on August 6, 1965 and delivered these remarks from the Capitol Rotunda:
Three and a half centuries ago the first Negroes arrived at Jamestown. They did not arrive in brave ships in search of a home for freedom. They did not mingle fear and joy, in expectation that in this New World anything would be possible to a man strong enough to reach for it.
They came in darkness and they came in chains.
And today we strike away the last major shackle of those fierce and ancient bonds. Today the Negro story and the American story fuse and blend.
Johnson also spoke to whites who fought to keep black people from voting:
It is difficult to fight for freedom. But I also know how difficult it can be to bend long years of habit and custom to grant it. There is no room for injustice anywhere in the American mansion. But there is always room for understanding toward those who see the old ways crumbling. And to them today I say simply this: It must come. It is right that it should come. And when it has, you will find that a burden has been lifted from your shoulders, too.
It is not just a question of guilt, although there is that. It is that men cannot live with a lie and not be stained by it.
Four years ago, in Shelby County v Holder the Supreme Court gutted the act. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg issued a scathing dissent — from which came this oft mentioned quote:
“Throwing out preclearance when it has worked and is continuing to work to stop discriminatory changes is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet.”
“The sad irony of today’s decision lies in its utter failure to grasp why the VRA has proven effective,” she wrote. “The Court appears to believe that the VRA’s success in eliminating the specific devices extant in 1965 means that preclearance is no longer needed. … With that belief, and the argument derived from it, history repeats itself.”
Let us also not forget LBJ’s speech before Congress “The American Promise,” delivered on March 15, 1965, which is discussed in this New York Times piece, The Speech That Defined the Fight for Voting Rights in Congress
(full text)
“There is no Negro problem. There is no southern problem. There is no northern problem. There is only an American problem.”
“Every American citizen must have an equal right to vote. There is no reason which can excuse the denial of that right. There is no duty which weighs more heavily on us than the duty we have to ensure that right.”
One of the best explanations I've ever seen that makes the whole issue of the Voting Rights Act clear is a video prepared by a historian and social studies teacher Keith Hughes, whose website is "Hip Hughes History." If you have high school age children, friends who do, or are a teacher, pass this on. Actually, you don't have to be a student or teacher to learn something. I sure did.
An overview of the landmark legislation passed giving the Federal Government enforcement power over the states in relationship to the 15th Amendment. Including Shelby County vs Holder which effectively kills much it. Huh? Watch the video! Visit www.hiphughes.com for swag history and teaching stuff.
One of the things that blew me away after watching the video was reading the positive comments underneath it on YouTube. Yes, you heard me—positive.
For those of you who may want to dig deeper into this history, I have two recommendations.
The first is The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States Revised Edition by Alexander Keyssar
Originally published in 2000, The Right to Vote was widely hailed as a magisterial account of the evolution of suffrage from the American Revolution to the end of the twentieth century. In this revised and updated edition, Keyssar carries the story forward, from the disputed presidential contest of 2000 through the 2008 campaign and the election of Barack Obama. The Right to Vote is a sweeping reinterpretation of American political history as well as a meditation on the meaning of democracy in contemporary American life.
Historian Itai Sneh wrote in his review:
The tragic death of Paul Wellstone, Minnesota's outspoken progressive Democratic senator, reminded us all, if it was necessary, how dangerous it is to be an energetic public figure. Although Wellstone died in a plane accident en route to a funeral, he was also campaigning vigorously in a tight schedule that demands a punishing lifestyle, especially during the electoral season when politicians customarily court prospective voters through regular primaries and in frequent fundraising events. Being an activist on a local and national level, is a risky proposition when the most spirited battles in Congress and in the media are fought primarily over allocation of domestic resources and foreign affairs rather than over matters of racism and political exclusion. But the contested history of access to power is far from resolved.
The complex question of whether the United States is or should be a procedural polity or a full substantive democracy, as well as what are the decisive moments for that narrative, has constituted one of the most fundamental debates in the annals of U.S. politics. What is needed to understand this controversy is a close analysis of who has the right to vote in free and periodic elections, presumably inherent in a self-described representative republic; who gets to exercise this liberty and under what circumstances; and how and by whom the votes are counted. Exploring these issues of mandate, power, influence, philosophy, and public policy as well as technical depth in an engaging manner is quite a challenge. Alexander Keyssar, Professor of History and Public Policy at Duke University, performs these tasks brilliantly. His treatise has already become the authoritative work in the field thanks to his thorough analysis and elegant prose. His appendix, moreover, can delight scholars in its depth and breadth of reference materials.
Keyssar is not an objective spectator, of course; nor does he pretend to be. By lauding the advancements and regretting the obstacles, Keyssar makes what could have been a rather dull and minutiae-oriented project come alive, albeit from a decidedly progressive perspective that seeks social justice. Keyssar, for example, laments the public apathy concerning voting. Successful struggles to enable access to the ballots have caused subsequent generations to take this option for granted, resulting in an appalling lack of participation, which in turn results in a much higher say for the propertied and commercial classes through financial and lobbying efforts. These groups advance only certain interest groups rather than the national welfare. Although this reviewer largely shares Keyssar's views and appreciates his professional method, a more nuanced approach as to why there was such a concerted campaign to limit the right to vote, and whether there are benefits from elite white men wielding and protecting their residual powers, could have made the work more compelling.
The second book is one I have recommended in the past: Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America, by Ari Berman.
Countless books have been written about the civil rights movement, but far less attention has been paid to what happened after the dramatic passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965 and the turbulent forces it unleashed. In this groundbreaking narrative history, Ari Berman charts both the transformation of American democracy under the VRA and the counterrevolution that has sought to limit it from the moment the act was signed into law. The VRA is widely regarded as the crowning achievement of the civil rights movement, and yet―more than fifty years later―the battles over race, representation, and political power continue, as lawmakers devise new strategies to keep minorities out of the voting booth, while the Supreme Court has declared a key part of the Voting Rights Act unconstitutional.
Through meticulous research, in-depth interviews, and incisive on-the-ground reporting, Give Us the Ballot offers the first comprehensive history of its kind, and provides new insight into one of the most vital political and civil rights issues of our time.
Berman talks about his book and research in this lecture. Take the time out if you can to listen to the entire program.
Ari Berman is a political correspondent for The Nation and an investigative journalism fellow at the Nation Institute, a nonprofit media center dedicated to strengthening the independent press and advancing social justice and civil rights. In this narrative history, Berman charts both the transformation of American democracy under the Voting Rights Act and the counterrevolution that has sought to limit voting rights from 1965 to the present day. In “Give Us the Ballot,” Berman provides new insight into one of the most vital political and civil rights issues of our time through meticulous archival research, in-depth interviews with major figures in the debate, and incisive on-the-ground reporting.
I commend Berman for his continued coverage of voting rights, voter suppression and civil rights. He was one of the first national journalists to cover the activism of the Moral Mondays movement and Rev. Barber. I suggest you follow him on Twitter.
While writing this I sat here and thought about my own history and how I learned about voting. My mom used to take me with her to vote in New York City. We’d go into the booth, she’d cast her ballot and I got to pull the lever that opened and closed the curtain. As I got older she talked to me about why it was important that we (black people) should vote—explaining the history of our fight for the franchise. In grade school I learned that women did not get suffrage till the 19th Amendment was ratified on August 18, 1920.
When I became a young adult, meeting
women like Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer fired up my focus on the life and death struggle being faced by people demanding to register and vote. Sitting here today I wonder why voting rights is not at the very top of the agenda of everyone who considers themselves to be left, liberal and progressive.
From my point of view, without the vote, we can accomplish very little. Perhaps because “voting rights” is viewed as a civil rights issue (read—mostly for black people) it takes a back seat to issues like income inequality, the banks, abortion rights, and the environment.
Think about where you place voting rights on your list of political priorities.
There are major organizations who are targeting voting rights and voter suppression and we need to support them. Many are offering solutions for change—like a voting rights amendment to the constitution.
[WASHINGTON (THURSDAY, June 22, 2017) — Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) led 46 Democratic Senators in reintroducing the Voting Rights Advancement Act of 2017 on Thursday. Leahy’s bill restores and modernizes the Voting Rights Act after the Supreme Court gutted the landmark civil rights law in the “Shelby County” decision in 2013. Following that decision, several states rushed to exploit the federal government’s inability to adequately protect Americans’ voting rights and enacted a wave of new voter suppression laws, from racial gerrymandering to voter ID laws targeting specific minority and disadvantaged populations. Leahy on Thursday joined Representatives Terri A. Sewell (D-Ala.), Judy Chu (D-Calif.), Michelle Lujan Grisham (D-N.M.) and John Lewis (D-Ga.) and leaders of national civil rights organizations at a rally in front of the U.S. Capitol to announce the introduction of the Senate and House bills. Leahy’s full statement on the introduction of his bill is below.]
Statement of Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.)
On Introduction of the Voting Rights Advancement Act of 2017
Four years ago, a narrow majority of the Supreme Court struck down the heart of the Voting Rights Act in Shelby County v. Holder. That 5 to 4 decision crippled the Federal government’s ability to protect minority, elderly, and disadvantaged voters across the country. The impact of this disastrous ruling has been even worse than imagined.
Before the ink even dried on the Court’s opinion, Republican officials in several states rushed to enact laws making it harder for minorities to vote. Prior to Shelby County, the Federal government had the ability to prevent racial discriminatory voting changes from taking effect before those changes occur. Proposed laws and new voting procedures would first have been reviewed by the Federal courts or the Department of Justice to ensure that voting rights would not be harmed if the changes went into effect. But without the full protections of the Voting Rights Act after Shelby County, discriminatory laws quickly passed Republican legislatures in several states.
Chief Justice Roberts’s majority opinion in Shelby County noted several times that the protections of the Voting Rights Act are no longer appropriate because our “country has changed.” It is true that our country has changed—we have made progress. But there is no question that the scourge of racial discrimination still exists. There are still those within our society intent on suppressing the right to vote and keeping minorities from exercising their constitutional right to participate in our democracy. Since the Shelby County ruling – and now emboldened by the Trump Administration – these forces are more concerning than they have been in decades.
Unfortunately, what has transpired in the aftermath of the Shelby County decision makes the need for the full protections of the Voting Rights Act unmistakably clear. Voter suppression efforts have found renewed life in numerous jurisdictions across the country. Thankfully, in some cases the courts have been able to provide a backstop. Based on strong evidence that hundreds of thousands of minority voters have been disproportionately prevented or discouraged from voting by Republican-enacted voting restrictions, federal courts have blocked or rolled back many of these laws. Importantly, federal courts have repeatedly found that these states enacted laws with the intention to discriminate.
His statement concluded:
Protecting Americans’ constitutional right to vote is not a partisan exercise. The original enactment and every reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act has always been bipartisan. When we last reauthorized the Voting Rights Act in 2006, I worked closely with the Republican chairmen of the Senate and House Judiciary Committees – former Senator Arlen Specter and Representative Jim Sensenbrenner. And past reauthorizations of the Voting Rights Act have been signed into law by Republican presidents.
But now, the Republican majority – in both the House and the Senate – refuses to protect the right to vote, restore the Voting Rights Act, or address other critical civil rights issues. Since the Shelby County decision, Republicans at every level of our government have acted to make it harder to vote. This has become the legacy of today’s Republican Party. They should think seriously about reversing course, rather than trying to reverse the gains we have made in history. One significant step would be to join with us to pass the Voting Rights Advancement Act to restore the historic nd critically-needed protections of this landmark civil rights law.
Activists continue to speak out and mobilize for voting rights and against voter suppression. Leading the charge has been Rev. William Barber, Moral Mondays and Repairers of the Breach.
On Monday, 7/17, Rev. William Barber gathered 50+ NYC clergy to condemn the ongoing, racist acts of voter suppression by the Trump administration and state elected officials. The group then signed an open letter to the UN, asking them to censure this disenfranchisement, which Rev. Barber delivered to the High Commissioner for Human Rights.
Voting must be a right and not a privilege.
In “Voting: Right or Privilege?" Garrett Epps cites a comment by Eric Foner:
Americans are more conflicted about our own voters than about those in Iraq or Germany. Eric Foner, DeWitt Clinton Professor of History at Columbia University, told me that since the country's founding, Americans have been torn between "voting as a right and voting as something that only the right people should do.”
The way I hear that comment is, “voting shouldn’t be something only certain white people should do.”