Overview: The recent decision by the US Supreme Court to strike down a key provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 has sparked a renewed sense of urgency in the Black community. The ruling, which deemed race-conscious redistricting unconstitutional, has been seen as a major setback in the fight for racial equality. However, Black leaders and activists are refusing to be discouraged, vowing to continue the struggle for voting rights and equality. The article highlights the long and often violent history of the fight for civil rights, and suggests that the current ruling is just the latest chapter in an ongoing story.
S.E. Williams
Though expected, few can argue that last week’s action by this nation’s conservative-leaning Supreme Court signalled a fundamental shift in this nation’s longstanding attitude toward race and equality.
In its dream-fracturing 6-3 decision, the nation’s highest court determined that race-conscious redistricting under Section 2 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA), is unconstitutional. Although the devastating Louisiana v. Callais decision struck down a second majority-Black congressional district in Louisiana further shattering the VRA, we must remember what Isaac Newton proved in his Third Law of Motion: That every action has an equal and opposite reaction.
So, when the court ruled and shut down this voting rights safeguard, it simultaneously re-ignited a smoldering energy in the Black community—we heard the voices of our ancestors telling us, “It is time for ‘good trouble.’”
In my column last week I wrote about the caution given by writer, activist Audre Lorde who warned us more than 50 years ago, “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House.” And yet, we continue to try.
Black people and their supporters were beaten, lynched, bombed, brutalized and murdered in our quest for voting rights. We worked within the system, “using the master’s tools,” so to speak. And the masters—only after the nation was forced to see itself through the mirror of Bloody Sunday—used their tools to quiet an angry people by passing the VRA. Almost concurrent with its passage however, the master began to exam other tools in his political power box to undo it.
Martin Luther King Jr. once said that “Undeserved suffering is redemptive.” Was he referring to those who suffer or those that perpetuate the suffering? I only ask because periodically it can awaken the consciousness of those who perpetuate the suffering and/or those who bear witness to the suffering.
What propelled passage of the VRA in 1965 on the heels of bloody Sunday seemed to mirror a similar suffering that propelled congress to at a year earlier, in 1964. That time, to pass the Civil Rights Act (CRA) which was intended to outlaw segregation and discrimination in all businesses and other spaces open to the general public. But, believe me, this was no act of altruism—it passed after the nation was called upon to face its humanity after many Americans were woefully triggered by the stench of death–lives once again sacrificed—due to America’s penchant for racism and white supremacy over the sanctity of Black lives. Like the brutality of Bloody Sunday that led to the VRA, passage of the Civil Rights Act dripped with the blood of our ancestors.
A first step in the long journey to passage of the 1964 CRA can be traced to the 1955 brutal murder of one of our Black children by white racists in the backwoods of Mississippi—15 year old Emmett Till. The same year saw the successful impact of the 381-day Montgomery, MS bus boycott, however overall progress for Blacks was slow. The work was laborious, treacherous, dangerous, selfless and the movement for equality heated-up, expanded and accelerated. But in 1963, the master once again reminded Black people of the dangers inherent in this struggle.
“We have come over a way that with tears has been watered. We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered. . .”
James Weldon Johnson
There were a number of Civil Rights-related incidents both large and small in 1963 that moved the nation closer to passage of the CRA. Some of those incidents embedded trauma in our collective DNA. It began in May that year with the Children’s Crusade in Birmingham, AL, where violent, racist police used high pressure water hoses and police dogs to attack and disrupt the peaceful protest of 1,000 Black school children. The consciousness of this nation was jolted and forced to face the reality of how inconsequential the master considered the lives of our Black children and their suffering. This was not 1863, this was 1963. But, this was only the beginning.
A month later, NAACP Field Secretary Medgar Evers was assassinated in front of his home with his wife and children inside. Evers’ death once again shook souls in the Black community and reminded those in the movement of the real dangers Black people faced just trying to get a foothold on equality. The worst however, was yet to come.
In August of that same year, the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, AL was bombed by white supremacists. Four little Black girls between the ages of 11 and 14 years were murdered. It injured an additional 14 to 22 people. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. called it, “one of the most vicious and tragic crimes ever perpetrated against humanity.”
And so, by the time the 1964 CRA was passed, the blood of Black martyrs had again washed across America. In response and in and effort to quell the passions and unrest of Blacks and their supporters the master used his tools to fashion and pass the CRA. Once again the master convinced the Black community that if we just used his tools we could build lasting, meaningful change.
And this is only part of the story. In the midst of the 1963 tragedies, President John F. Kennedy called upon congress to pass the CRA. Kennedy however, was also murdered in 1963. It was left to his successor, President Lyndon Johnson, to usher the bill through congress in 1964.
For those who may not recall, Title I of the Civil Rights Act also addressed the issue of voting rights. The legislation barred the use of unequal voter registration procedures, however it did not go far enough. It did not eliminate the main tool used by southern racists to keep Blacks from voting and that was the literacy tests, the main device that southern states used at that time to keep Black people from voting. This was finally addressed with the passage of the VRA.
The nation’s master racists barely tolerated these advancements for a little more than forty years. . . and then the country elected a Black man president. . . twice.
That is when the slow, hard fought-for progress to secure racial equity took a sudden, radical turn and began heading in the opposite direction. In 2013, the same U.S. Supreme Court disemboweled the VRA, by taking a sledge hammer to the most impactful part of the legislation, Section 4. This section of the VRA, required certain states with a history of impeding access to the ballot for Blacks to seek judicial preclearance before making any changes to voting laws, districts and/or procedures.
The lesson is clear, while the master worked with Black leaders, allowed them access to the tool box to help create what Blacks and their supporters perceived as meaningful change. It was short-lived. When Blacks and others exercised their power at the polls and elected Barack Obama it was as if the master realized he had allowed too much access to power. In response, he is taking away access to his tool box.
Black people, however, are not deterred. We remember who we are. We are descended from thousands of years of master builders . . . we have our own tools. The ancestors remind us that we have a debt we must pay forward. We’ve learned much from previous movements. And we can take inspiration from the sentiments of author Bryce Courtenay. This is not an exact quote but what he sought to convey is that strength can come from the power of many but only when the many come together to form that which is invincible—the power of one.
We must lift our voices. We are not going back.
Of course, this is just my opinion. I’m not going back.