The Voting Rights Act:
40 Years After “Bloody Sunday”

For those of us old enough to remember, March 7, 1965, is a day that will forever be etched in our memories. It was on that Sunday 40 years ago that a courageous group of civil rights activists set out from Brown Chapel A.M.E. Church in Selma, Alabama, en route to the state capitol in Montgomery to demand voting rights for blacks in southern states.

Just weeks earlier another group attempted to make the trek but encountered violence on the way, as a young protester, Jimmie Lee Jackson, was shot and would die days later from his wounds. In a state where blacks lived a subterranean existence under Jim Crow, the simple act of seeking the right to vote could be a death sentence.

Although the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, adopted after the Civil War, conferred the right to vote on citizens regardless of race or color, state and local officials across the country spent the next 100 years findings ways around the statute. If poll taxes or literacy tests didn’t work, than intimidation usually did the job. People were killed merely for trying to vote.

The demonstrators on March 7 were determined to complete the journey to the state capitol, in part as a tribute to Jackson. Their determination was matched and overwhelmed by the racism of Alabama officials on that day. As the marchers made their way across the Edmund Pettus Bridge they were greeted by a phalanx of club wielding Alabama state troopers. The brutality that ensued left the activists bruised and bloodied. The beatings the marchers endured were so graphic that the day has come to be known as “Bloody Sunday.”

The events of “Bloody Sunday” triggered a culminating moment in the civil rights movement: the Voting Rights Act. The use of clubs and tear gas against a non-violent group of Americans marching to dramatize the right to vote was broadcast on national television. This finally proved too much for the established powers in Washington.

President Lyndon Johnson called on Congress to pass far-reaching legislation that would ensure the voting rights of all Americans. “The right to vote with no ifs, ands, or buts, that’s the key,” said Johnson. He signed the Voting Rights Act on August 6, 1965, just five months after “Bloody Sunday.”

The Act outlaws discriminatory practices such as literacy tests, the “grandfather” clause, and the poll tax that had been used to disenfranchise blacks. The Act prohibits any changes in election laws unless approved or “pre-cleared” by the federal Department of Justice. It provides for federal election monitors to be deployed as deterrence to the use of intimidation to keep blacks from the polls. It also requires bilingual electoral assistance where necessary.

Impact Beyond Voting

The impact of the Voting Rights Act extended beyond voting. It created the environment for blacks to seek pubic office from city halls to Congress, laying the groundwork for the election of an unprecedented number of elected local officials and a significant number of members of Congress.

Even with the law on the books, efforts to deny people of color the vote have persisted. Violations of the Act continue today across the country. The nation has experienced two consecutive presidential elections during which the rights of black voters in some states were subjected to segregationist era tactics to suppress their participation.

Discriminatory practices against blacks, Latinos, and immigrant groups in the North persisted into the 1960’s. New York State’s literacy test, which was law until the Voting Rights Act, acted as a barrier to voting among Puerto Ricans as well as immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe.

In New York City, we are particularly challenged to secure voting rights for large segments of citizens of certain language minority groups who comprise an increasingly significant share of the city’s population. For this group language and literacy barriers must be addressed in the reauthorization of the Act.

Renew Crucial Sections

Three crucial sections of the law - requiring pre-clearance of election law changes, authorizing federal observers to monitor elections, and mandating bilingual election assistance – will expire in 2007 unless Congress votes to renew them. We must work with our Congressional delegation to pressure the Bush administration and Congress to extend those sections.

As we pay homage to the courage of those activists who stood tall on Bloody Sunday, our moral obligation is to make certain future generations are apprised of the legacy they have inherited and see voting as a definitive cultural statement. Many bridges remain to be crossed on the path to full voting rights in this country.

From the New York Amsterdam News
March 10 - 16, 2005