The African-American quest for political equality has been a long and often difficult struggle. Though the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution enacted in 1870 stated “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude,” this was largely an empty gesture.
Matters changed dramatically when Congress enacted the Voting Rights Act of 1965. (it has since been amended multiple times). The Act mobilized the federal government’s vast power to ensure that African Americans had full, unencumbered, access to the ballot. Section 2 prohibited any state or local authority from imposing any rule that, “results in the denial or abridgement of the right of any citizen to vote on account of race or color or membership in a language minority group.” Also banned were practices such as the literacy test whose unstated purpose was to minimize black voting.
The Act explicitly barred jurisdictions with histories of racial discrimination from altering their voting regulations without the U.S. Attorney General’s prior approval (called “pre-clearance”) The Act’s language was further interpreted to mean that voting provisions that hindered blacks from being elected by fellow blacks violated the Act.
The Act dramatically altered our political landscape and today African Americans have achieved notable electoral successes from twice electing a black president to being elected mayor of almost every major American city. To be sure, while black turnout vis-à-vis-white rates have declined somewhat from the highwater level when President Obama was elected, nobody could possibly deny that the “Black vote” is a fervently courted voting bloc.
Given these successes, what unfinished business remains on the black voting rights agenda? According to leading Democrats, including President Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris, the answer is to enact “The John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement of 2024” (John Lewis was a notable civil rights activist). According to one supporter, “It would restore the Voting Rights Act to its place as the crown jewel of American democracy.’’
The proposed legislation would restore the pre-clearance policy that the Supreme Court had invalidated in Shelby County v. Holder in 2013. With this returned power, the U.S. Attorney General could then intervene to protect the voting rights of “…cohesive coalition of members of different racial or language minority groups.” In other words, this 2024 proposed Act is a return to the earlier era when blacks were barred from voting by devious tactics such cumbersome registration requirements.
Hellbound and Down 