AURN News with Ebony McMorris

Voting Rights Act at 59: A Legacy of Progress, a Call to Action

Ebony McMorris
August 6, 2024

President Lyndon B. Johnson shakes hands with Martin Luther King Jr., after presenting a pen to the civil rights leader after Johnson signed the voting rights bill at the Capitol in Washington, Aug. 6, 1965. At center is Rep. Ray Madden, D-Ind. Joel Finkelstein was an accidental witness to one of the seminal events during the Civil Rights Movement, the signing in 1965 of the Voting Rights Act. He was a year out of law school when he received the call to head to the U.S. Capitol for the signing. He had helped write the law as a lawyer in the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division. (AP Photo)

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Today marks the 59th anniversary of the signing of the Voting Rights Act, the landmark legislation, a beacon of hope, dismantling bearers of the Jim Crow era and ensuring voting opportunities for communities of color. The past decade has seen the Supreme Court relentlessly chip away at the achievements of the civil rights movement.

The 2013 Shelby County v. Holder ruling, effectively gutting the preclearance provision of the Voting Rights Act, emboldened states to enact racially discriminatory policies. In response, the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act was introduced in Congress in 2021, aiming to restore the Voting Rights Act to its full strength.

Representatives from the NAACP Legal Defense Fund stand outside the Supreme Court in Washington, June 25, 2013, awaiting a decision in Shelby County v. Holder, a voting rights case in Alabama. A U.S. Supreme Court decision a decade ago that tossed out the heart of the Voting Rights Act continues to reverberate across the country. Republican-led states continue to pass voting restrictions that, in several cases, would have been subject to federal review had the court left the provision intact. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

Unfortunately, it did not overcome the Senate filibuster, leaving minority voters vulnerable to discriminatory practices. The Brennan Center for Justice highlighted the urgent need for such legislation, as restrictive voting laws continue to proliferate. At least 31 states have enacted over 100 new restrictive voting laws since the Shelby decision.

Click play to listen to the report from AURN White House Correspondent Ebony McMorris. For more news, follow @E_N_McMorris & @aurnonline.

White House Correspondent Ebony McMorris is a native Washingtonian and University of South Carolina alumna. Her passion is mentoring young adults by teaching community empowerment and media education. She is an NAB member and board member of the Thurgood Marshall Center and was presented the President’s Lifetime Achievement Award for contributing more than 4,000 hours of community service under the Obama Administration.