{"id":1805,"date":"2026-05-25T00:59:33","date_gmt":"2026-05-25T00:59:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/penning.us\/Nick2\/?p=1805"},"modified":"2026-10-28T22:44:38","modified_gmt":"2026-10-28T22:44:38","slug":"voting-rights-erased-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/penning.us\/Nick2\/2026\/05\/25\/voting-rights-erased-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Voting Rights Erased"},"content":{"rendered":"

An assassinated<\/a> NAACP leader, pummeled bodies<\/a>, lynchings, freedom riders<\/a>\u2019 burning bus<\/a>, hooded klansmen, children battered by fire hoses<\/a>, and the sound of the refrain, \u201cWe shall overcome<\/a>.\u201d All these preceded President Johnson proposing to Congress<\/a> the bill which became law upon his signature<\/a>, the Voting Rights Act<\/a> in 1965.<\/p>\n

With its 6-3 decision<\/a> on Louisiana v. Callais<\/em> on April 29th, 2026, the US Supreme Court effectively nullified the voting rights of African Americans, for whom discrimination exists in nearly every facet of their lives; so much so that one African American compared navigating a day to, \u201cwalking on eggshells<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, the Court majority said, \u201cvast social change has occurred throughout the country and particularly in the South, which have made great strides in ending entrenched racial discrimination.\u201d Ending racial discrimination? Seriously? Tell that to any Black person in a car, who\u2019s been \u201cdriving while Black<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Prior to the Voting Rights Act, many states – primarily, but not exclusively, in the South – had denied access to or imposed impossible restrictions<\/a> on voting attempts by their African American citizens. The Act required those states to seek pre-approval from the Justice Department for any changes in the manner by which they carried out their elections. However, in 2013 the Supreme Court Court in Shelby v Holder<\/a><\/em> ruled that those states would no longer be under federal scrutiny for any changes made to their election laws.<\/p>\n

Within days of the Court\u2019s 2013 Shelby<\/em> decision, state after state, which had been covered<\/a> by the Act, enacted \u201cvoter i.d.<\/a>\u201d laws, requiring each voter to present an identification card in order to receive a ballot, even though many voters may not have such i.d. cards or live in areas with access to acquiring such identification. The Voting Rights Act was beginning to unravel.<\/p>\n

Before the Shelby<\/em> decision, a member of the majority, Justice Antonin Scalia, had posited that Congress, by renewing the Voting Rights Act, was complicit in assuring the \u201cperpetuation of racial entitlement<\/a>.\u201d Entitlement? The right to vote is sacred to each citizen in our democracy, whether white, black, brown, yellow or red. And, yes, we are each entitled to exercise that vote.<\/p>\n

Justice Elana Kagan in her 2026 dissent, called the Louisiana<\/em> decision<\/a> \u201cthis latest chapter in the majority’s now-completed demolition of the Voting Rights Act.\u201d Thus, sixty one years after its enactment, the Voting Rights Act, so vigorously and bravely fought for during the Civil Rights Era<\/a>, has effectively been erased.<\/p>\n

Just days after the Court\u2019s April 29 decision removed the final leg of the Voting Rights Act, further attempts to deny that right again quickly surfaced, as the formerly sanctioned states began to re-adjust<\/a> the geographic population boundaries set to apportion their citizens to be represented in Congress.<\/p>\n

Because African Americans tend to be clustered in specific geographic areas – due to housing discrimination<\/a> practices, such as redlining<\/a>, state legislatures had been legally and morally bound to maintain this population in specific, majority minority congressional districts, where African American voters could vote with their peers on who will represent them in Congress. Slicing up this population, and pasting Black voters into areas of congressional districts where they\u2019ve not been allowed to live, dilutes Black votes and weakens their political power. Their voices become silenced.<\/p>\n

In Tennessee, where the legislature in May divided<\/a> Memphis and its Black community into three majority white congressional districts, the sole Democratic congressman, who was supported by the Black community, will likely lose his seat. \u201cI was here when we first fought with the Department of Justice to get this district drawn so that the African American minority could win it,\u201d Memphis resident Fred Dorse, 81, said<\/a>. \u201cIt hurts my heart, at almost 81 years old, to see us lose this again.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI was here in the \u201860s when (the Voting Rights Act) was passed,\u201d Memphian Bennita Wade added. \u201cIt\u2019s just disturbing. To me, I don\u2019t understand why \u2014 I do understand why, though. Why is it that we have to be punished here with no district to vote (in), and we never get a representative of our choice anymore? That\u2019s something that we have that was fought for so hard and so long. So it\u2019s disturbing.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the national level, the NAACP is pushing back hard<\/a>. It has targeted the flagship public university athletic programs in eight states – Tennessee, Louisiana, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas, and Georgia – states that have weakened or erased Black voting rights in the wake of the Supreme Court\u2019s Louisiana decision. The preeminent civil rights organization called for Black athletes, families, fans, alumni, and consumers to withhold their support – both athletic and financial – from the leading public universities in the designated states.<\/p>\n

“What these states have done is not a policy disagreement. It is a sprint to erase Black political power,” said Derrick Johnson, President & CEO, NAACP. “These actions happened in days, in some cases in hours, of a Supreme Court ruling that gives extremist lawmakers a playbook to erode Black representation. The NAACP will not watch the same institutions that depend on Black athletic prowess to fill their stadiums and their bank accounts remain silent while their states strip Black communities of their voice.”<\/p>\n

Ashley Shelton, the President and CEO of The Power Coalition for Equality and Justice, a Louisiana-based community organizing group, said<\/a>, \u201cThe answer has to be that voters have to turn out en masse in the fall and elect a Congress that is going to restore so many of the rights that have been lost.\u201d And Hillary Harris Klein, senior counsel at the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, added, \u201cIt (the Court\u2019s decision) is really a call to action to Congress to step in and ensure that our elections are fair,\u201d to \u201cenact new statutes, via the law, in order to protect voters.\u201d<\/p>\n

States led by Republicans seem determined to skew representation in Washington, starting with the fall congressional elections. Will a massive turnout occur? Will the president and his party twist the levers of power to assure the outcome they prefer? Only we, as voters, can give our answer in November.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An assassinated NAACP leader, pummeled bodies, lynchings, freedom riders\u2019 burning bus, hooded klansmen, children battered by fire hoses, and the sound of the refrain, \u201cWe shall overcome.\u201d All these preceded President Johnson proposing to Congress the bill which became law upon his signature, the Voting Rights Act in 1965. With its 6-3 decision on Louisiana […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/penning.us\/Nick2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/penning.us\/Nick2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/penning.us\/Nick2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/penning.us\/Nick2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/penning.us\/Nick2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1805"}],"version-history":[{"count":26,"href":"https:\/\/penning.us\/Nick2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1805\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1869,"href":"https:\/\/penning.us\/Nick2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1805\/revisions\/1869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/penning.us\/Nick2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/penning.us\/Nick2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/penning.us\/Nick2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}