Your Right to Vote Is in More Danger Than You Realize
Sixty years after the Voting Rights Act was signed, the protections it provides are under attack.
Rights purchased with the blood of generations.
Photographer: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images
In January 1966, five months after the Voting Rights Act took effect, the Ku Klux Klan attacked the home of Vernon Dahmer, a Mississippi activist who’d been leading registration drives. Gunshots were fired through the windows as the house burned to the ground. Dahmer’s family barely escaped; Dahmer himself died within hours. Meanwhile, across the border, in Selma, Alabama, within two years of the statute’s passage, the number of Black registered voters increased from 335 to over 11,000 — almost at parity with White voters. Finally, the 88th US Congress, which adjourned in 1965, had five Black members; today there are 68.
I mention all of this because of the parlous state of the Voting Rights Act as we celebrate the 60th anniversary of this imperfect but vitally important statute — now battered and bruised, and, quite possibly, on its way to desuetude. Before we consider anything else, let’s remember that the Act was purchased in blood of many generations and that it’s worked remarkable changes in the land.