Local Leaders Call to Fight for Voting Rights Act
By Kyra Jenkins, California Advocate
When the US Supreme Court invalidated Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act, it unearthed an era deeply embedded within our nation’s history for more than half a century.
On June 25 Supreme Court Justices ousted the historic Section of the law which required select states to receive preapproval by the federal government before amending their voting laws.
The law was put into effect in 1965 to prohibit racial discrimination in voting during a time when African-American voters were intimidated with tools such as literacy tests, poll taxes and in some cases life-threatening force.
Their decision to nullify this section of the VRA sparked a unanimous outcry from African-American leaders and educators on both a local and national level.
“We cannot accept secondclass mixed slavery again… there’s been too much blood and sacrifice…It would dishonor Dr. King, all the people murdered in Mississippi. We’re going to expect the government to protect our right to vote,” said Kehinde Solwazi, former African Studies Professor at Fresno City College.
“I truly believe that what the Supreme Court did was to stab, to put that dagger deep in the heart of the Voting Rights Act of 1965,” Civil Rights Activist John Lewis told Politics Nation.
When the Justices tossed out the Section and dumped it in the hands of Congress, they called for a revisit and rewrite one of the nation’s most fundamental provisions.
Chief Justice John Roberts has been quoted as saying “the country has changed in the last 50 years” and “states are entitled to equal sovereignty,” upholding the rights of states instead of “We the People.” The chief defense attorney at Madera Alternate Defense says the Supreme Court is calling for Congress to bring the VRA into the 21st century.
“The Court found Congress has not addressed that formula since 1975, they completely ignored the hearing held in 2009, 2010. There’s 15,000 pages of testimony and I don’t know how many hours of congressional hearings and then basically a unanimous vote to maintain that formula.
Basically what the Court said is they didn’t look at it. The senate hearings that year did not really address the formula with what is going on today,” said Attorney Bob Hirth.
The Court’s decision gave carte blanche voting rights to nine states specified in the clause including Texas, Mississippi, and Florida.
Their 5-4 vote didn’t sit well with the NAACP, Black Women’s Agenda, and others such as retired FCC professor Solwazi. In fact, already a number of states, such as Texas, Alabama, and Mississippi, have moved forward in approving their own voter ID laws, which were found to be discriminatory during last year’s presidential election.
Solwazi says to do away with Section 4 is to send African- Americans back to a time when their vote didn’t count and furthermore, suppress their vote today.
“We can never go back to the Jim Crow period I was raised in. We will never accept that…
Once you take away someone’s right to vote they have stripped them of their citizenship.
Our position should be not one step back,” said Solwazi.
He recalls a disgraceful time when African-Americans could not vote because of their race. He says the generation before him marched, fought and some were killed because they wanted their vote to count, just as much as any other citizen’s.
The recent decision called all Americans to revisit a time, just as the nine Justices did, when African-Americans wanted to be a part of the democracy they supported but were not able to until the Voting Rights Act forced the nation to open polling locations for all citizens.
Solwazi fears that stripping citizens of Section 4 of the VRA will unlock the age-old door of discrimination and welcome racism at the polls, as history has shown before the VRA was passed.
“We are not going to go back and go through what our ancestors went through. When I talk to them I want to cry when I hear all the stuff they’ve been through. The generation before me, people in their 80s and 90s, talk about the humiliation. I understand this is what they had to deal with. But no, no we cannot ever go back to that,” said Solwazi.
The former educator reminds us that the US Supreme Justices have done this before.
In 1883, the Supreme Court found the Civil Rights Act of 1875 unconstitutional. It called African-Americans out of slavery and into freedom as equal citizens but was rendered invalid. “States implemented barriers such as literacy tests, grandfather clauses and felon disenfranchisement laws,” as stated by the American Constitution Society.
After the 1883 decision, African-Americans had to wait over 80 years for a law to protect their natural rights as citizens of a country they helped build. Nearly a century passed after the Fifteenth Amendment was implemented before Congress passed the Voting Rights Act to ensure equal voting practices for all races, mainly African- Americans.
President of the NAACP Chapter in Fresno, Pamela Young-King, says perhaps the time period has changed but it’s the same ‘ol song. During the 2012 presidential election voters were intimidated with billboards warning of voter ID fraud, some states such as Ohio and Wisconsin did away with early voting, which was said to be a tradition among African-American voters in those areas.
“Those were tactics to keep us from voting, to frustrate us so we would throw our hands up and say we don’t have time for that. If the Supreme Court doesn’t maintain the VRA where will we be? They will put different criteria in place…to eliminate people like you and me who helped get Obama elected,” said Young-King.
“You’ve seen the last election, blacks outvoted everyone in the country. They voted 98 percent, it’s never happened in the history of this country. We might end up with another black president, Mexican, or Asian,” said Solwazi.
Chief Defense Attorney Bob Hirth also agrees that the Court’s decision was politically and racially charged. According to Gallup Politics in 2012, African-Americans were mostly Democrat and Republicans were overwhelmingly white. “Almost two-thirds of blacks identify as Democrats, with most of the rest identifying as independents. Only 5% of blacks nationwide identify as Republicans.”
“There is a racial segment and there is a political segment to this. The political segment is based on the fact that the largest number of African-American voters are registered Democrats. How do you change that? You make it so they can’t register, you make it so they can’t vote… Turn out basic conservative, religious voters and now you’re back to the same position you were in 1963 and that’s not where we want to be,” said Hirth.
Now the nation is waiting for Congress to decide what they will do with Section 4. Congress can either strike it down, or update it by addressing the nine states originally specified or they can rewrite it to apply to all 50 states in the nation.
“Section 4 did not apply to Ohio and Wisconsin, only the nine states… Section 5 does apply to all the 50 states. What they have to do is bring Section 4 in line with Section 5,” said Hirth.
According to the New Journal and Guide, “Congressman Robert Scott of Virginia, who sits on the House Judiciary Committee, said he is optimistic that the U.S. Congress will update Section 4 before it adjourns later this year” because an exceeding number of states are implementing new voter ID laws even at the time this article prints.
“The problem is how long is anything going to take in Congress? It could be done this session, I doubt it. It could be done next session, but I doubt it…Nothing will get done in Congress and nothing will be done on VRA until we get some people in there who actually understand compromise,” said Hirth.
In the meantime, Solwazi has a message for young voters who never experienced the Civil Rights Movement first hand but are embarking on a struggle of their own, “be men and women and force this country to respect us or our children and grandchildren don’t have a chance in the US…I am a child of segregation and Jim Crow, I remember when we couldn’t vote.
I want you, young people, to get some backbone, stand up. Your ancestors sacrificed for you… it’s your turn to say ‘never again, not one step back.’
I think if we do that in a very strong and defiant manner we won’t have any issues of voting.” And the NAACP says they will hold meetings to discuss the VRA and how to educate African-American students on their rich heritage and the historic struggle to vote.
“They don’t know the history of the Civil Rights Movement and that has been an orchestrated event to keep our kids from their history… they don’t teach black history in schools because knowledge is power. If they had that knowledge…they would understand they need to go out and vote…they don’t know what it’s like to go into a segregated bathroom, a segregated eating area. They don’t know their history, that is something the NAACP wants to get on top of real soon,” said Young-King.
The organization can also be heard on 88.1FM the first Monday of every month. To learn more call (559) 263- 1367.
The California Advocate would like to thank the San Joaquin College of Law for their efforts with this article as well as other contributors.