It’s March 7, which means it’s the 60th anniversary of Bloody Sunday and the legendary freedom march from Selma, Alabama, to Montgomery. And since, under the current presidential administration, every single day is a day to wonder which civil rights protections our revolutionary icons fought and bled for will be rolled back next, Democratic leaders are still promoting bills to protect basic constitutional rights for Black people — almost as if we were still in that era and “making America great again” meant not only repeating that history, but making it permanent.
So, to commemorate the anniversary of Bloody Sunday — and to apply the lesson America was supposed to learn from it — U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell (D-Al.) led “every House Democrat” in introducing H.R. 14, the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which is meant to “restore and modernize the protections of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA), addressing modern-day voter suppression and ensuring every voter, regardless of race or background, has equal access to the ballot box,” according to a press release published Tuesday by Sewell’s office.
The bill specifically seeks to address a 2013 Supreme Court decision that significantly weakened the Voting Rights Act of 1965 by doing away with key provisions of the law in order to — well — I’m looking for a more sophisticated answer than “reinforce white supremacy,” but I’m drawing a blank here.
“Since the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act of 1965, we have seen state officials advance hundreds of new measures to make it harder for Americans to vote,” Sewell said in a statement announcing the bill. “As we prepare to commemorate the 60th anniversary of Bloody Sunday in my hometown of Selma, Alabama, it is clear; the fight for voting rights is just as urgent today as it was decades ago. I’m proud to be reintroducing the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act with the support of every House Democrat. Our bill would give us the tools necessary to address modern-day voter suppression and ensure every American has equal access to the ballot box.”
Here’s a quick synopsis on what happened in 2013, via the Brennan Center:
On June 25, 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a devastating decision, Shelby County v. Holder, which dealt a significant blow to the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The Court struck down the law’s formula for determining which states and localities should be required to get federal approval for changes to voting policies to ensure that they were not racially discriminatory.
By striking down that formula, the Court effectively put an end to that process, which was known as “preclearance.” For almost 50 years, the Voting Rights Act was arguably the most effective piece of civil rights legislation in the nation’s history, and the preclearance requirement, found in Section 5 of the law, was its most innovative and impactful provision.
The effects of the ruling were immediate. The same day, Texas officials announced that they would implement the nation’s most restrictive voter ID law, which had previously been blocked in the preclearance process. That law, which a court later ruled to be racially discriminatory, was the first of a massive wave of restrictive voting policies implemented in jurisdictions previously subject to preclearance. And it turned out that the Shelby County decision was only the first of a series of Supreme Court decisions that would roll back protections for voting rights.
Not only did the Supreme court decision serve as a catalyst for voter suppression laws, but it is arguably what led to the more recent trend of Republican legislators redistricting their states’ congressional maps with the expressed purpose of diluting Black voting power.
60 years was not very long ago. 60 years ago, hundreds of protesters who would be labeled “woke” agitators by current conservative political standards attempted to walk from Selma to Montgomery demanding that Black people have the unfettered right to vote. The demonstrators were brutally beaten, hosed, and gassed by state and county police officers, some of whom chased protesters down on horseback.
The late Democratic senator and civil rights icon who helped lead the march, Sen. John Lewis, who Sewell’s legislation is named for, famously described the protesters as “a few innocent children of God–some carrying only a bed roll, a few clutching a simple bag, a plain purse, or a backpack,” who “were inspired to walk 50 dangerous miles from Selma to Montgomery to demonstrate the need for voting rights in the state of Alabama.”
In 2020, when President Donald Trump launched his “election fraud” propaganda campaign, he exclusively (and baselessly) challenged the election results in voting districts with large Black populations, meaning, if his “big lie” had been successful in overturning the results, it would have been Black voters who were disproportionately disenfranchised.
Then, America elected him back into office four years later.
We’re not as far along as they claim we are, good people. RIP Sen. John Lewis, and a special shout out to Rep. Terri Sewell and all leaders who understand the fight that began when we landed on this rock, and culminated into Bloody Sunday 60 years ago, still lives on.
Stay woke!
The post Rep. Terri Sewell Introduces The ‘John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act’ Ahead Of Bloody Sunday Anniversary appeared first on Bossip.
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