By SPEAKIN’ OUT NEWS
The Southern Poverty Law Center marked the 61st anniversary of the Voting Rights Act by celebrating the landmark law’s impact while warning that recent court decisions have made it more difficult to protect Black voting power.
“For generations, Black people were denied full participation in our democracy,” SPLC Alabama State Director Tafeni English-Relf said during the Aug. 6 event. “And it was the passage of the Voting Rights Act that allowed those barriers to be broken down.”
President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the legislation on Aug. 6, 1965, months after Alabama law-enforcement officers attacked peaceful voting-rights demonstrators on Selma’s Edmund Pettus Bridge. The law prohibited discriminatory practices such as literacy tests and strengthened federal oversight of elections.
Within six months, the number of registered Black voters in Alabama reportedly more than doubled – from approximately 110,000 to 228,000.
Civil-rights advocates say two Supreme Court rulings have since weakened the law’s enforcement power. In 2013, Shelby County v. Holder invalidated the coverage formula used to determine which jurisdictions required federal approval before changing voting laws. That decision left Section 5’s preclearance requirement largely inoperative.
In April, the Supreme Court’s ruling in Louisiana v. Callais imposed a more demanding standard for Section 2 redistricting claims, making it considerably harder for voters to challenge maps that diminish minority voting power.
“Section 5 has been gutted. Section 2 has been narrowed,” said voting-rights plaintiff Shalela Dowdy.
The SPLC also announced its “We Decide: Alabama” campaign, which will include voter canvassing, community block parties and voter-education efforts ahead of the midterm elections.
Jerome Dees, the SPLC’s policy director, said honoring the law requires continuing the work of ensuring every Alabamian has a meaningful voice in shaping the state’s future.