60 Years Later, Republicans Weaponize the Voting Rights Act to Expand Power

The landmark civil rights law designed to protect the voting power of marginalized communities may not survive the latest assaults from the right.

(Envato)

The 60^th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, a landmark civil rights win in U.S. history, comes as these divided states stand on the precipice of civil war.

Under the fascist regime of President Donald Trump, blatant white supremacists are now whipping themselves into a frenzy, desperate to ensure that whiteness, patriarchy and wealth remain the sole domains of power and privilege in this country. As has always been the case, one way to accomplish this— along with targeting the Department of Education, making quality health care inaccessible for millions of people and unleashing law enforcement officers to kill with impunity—is by blocking Black people from voting by any means necessary.

Past is prologue here.

President Lyndon B. Johnson—a not-so-clandestine racist so terrified of Fannie Lou Hamer’s powerful testimony during the 1964 Democratic National Convention that he called a press conference to get news stations to cut away from her—signed the VRA into law Aug. 6, 1965—but only after Black blood was spilled across Alabama.

In early 1965, authorities arrested Rev. James Orange, who started as a field organizer with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and grew to become one of the most influential leaders in the movement. He was unjustly charged with disorderly conduct and “contributing to the delinquency of minors” who were working with him to register voters in the vicinity of Marion, Ala.

Activists, organizers and praying church members gathered to demand Rev. Orange’s release; among them were activist and deacon Jimmie Lee Jackson, 26, his mother Viola Jackson, and his 82-year-old grandfather Cager Lee. Instead of allowing the community to peacefully protest—that only happens in a true democracy, not an authoritarian state masquerading as one—state troopers high on white rage and the “drum major instinct,” went into attack mode like the rabid beasts they were.

Jimmie and his family fled into a nearby café. When troopers began assaulting his mother and grandfather, the young leader ran to defend them. For his heroic efforts, State Trooper James Fowler shot him twice in the abdomen at point-blank range. He died eight days later, just five days after Malcolm X was assassinated.

Speaking at Lee’s funeral, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said:

“A state trooper pointed the gun, but he did not act alone.
He was murdered by the brutality of every sheriff who practices lawlessness in the name of law.

He was murdered by the irresponsibility of every politician, from governors on down, who has fed his constituents the stale bread of hatred and the spoiled meat of racism.

He was murdered by the timidity of a federal government that can spend millions of dollars a day to keep troops in South Vietnam and cannot protect the rights of its own citizens seeking the right to vote.

He was murdered by the indifference of every white minister of the gospel who has remained silent behind the safe security of his stained-glass windows.

And he was murdered by the cowardice of every Negro who passively accepts the evils of segregation and stands on the sidelines in the struggle for justice.”

Fowler was indicted in 2007, pleaded guilty to second-degree manslaughter and served five months behind bars. Orange’s arrest, which led to Fowler murdering Jackson, sparked the fire behind the March 7, 1965 march from Selma to Montgomery known as “Bloody Sunday.”

And we’ve been fighting ever since.