Civil Rights Movement marks 60th year. Could another movement be at hand?
Sixty years ago this year, America experienced the pivotal Civil Rights Movement of 1964. Could another such protest evolve in coming months?
There are those who believe another movement is needed as states enact or strengthen restrictive election laws (like Georgia’s silly order to not give voters standing in line under a broiling sun a refreshing sip of water).
The young folks who participated in the seminal movement six decades ago, mostly college students from foreign lands out west and up east, had the belly fire required to see the challenge through. They constantly displayed the bravery and willingness to die, if necessary, to protect African-Americans’ constitutional and voting rights.
Some did die, right here in Mississippi.
My hometown of McComb was “invaded” by freedom activists intent on helping Pike County’s Black citizens register to vote. Local units of the Ku Klux Klan were hell-bent on stopping them in their tracks. They couldn’t.
The protest worked as the number of Black voters — and officeholders — increased exponentially in Pike County and most other Mississippi domains.
The McComb campaign actually started in 1961 when legendary voter rights activist Robert P. Moses came to Pike County and led an effort resulting in the new registration of thousands of Black voters. When Moses arrived, there were about 200 minority voters in the county.
Before 1961 could sign off, there’d been a sit-in by Black activists at the Woolworth’s store in McComb, Moses was severely beaten for his voter registration efforts, three young Blacks had staged a sit-in protest at the McComb bus station and some 100 Black students were charged with disturbing the peace after a rally at McComb City Hall.
Mississippi’s voter-registration drive and movement for rights equality was in full bloom and continued unabated through early 1965, reaching its acme the year before. My book, “Hometown,” chronicled the unrest and torrid violence in McComb and Southwest Mississippi in 1964.
President Lyndon B. Johnson on July 2, 1964, signed the Civil Rights Act prohibiting discrimination in public settings, forcing the integration of the nation’s public schools and making employment discrimination illegal. In August 1965, Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act prohibiting discrimination at the ballot box.
Nowadays, the Washington-based Legal Defense Fund and other civil rights groups are worried that yesteryear’s victories will be diluted as states put new threads on old discriminatory practices.
They particularly cite laws passed in Georgia following record voter turnouts in the 2020 presidential and the 2021 U.S. Senate elections. Georgia turned purple as voters surprisingly favored President Biden over then-President Trump and elected two senators in those years, leading to voting changes that activists say discriminate against minorities.
The LDF claims Georgia Senate Bill 202 will suppress voter turnout in coming elections and disproportionately “burden voters of color, new citizens and religious groups.”
Recently, the St. Louis-based 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that only the federal government can sue for judicial relief under the Voting Rights Act — not groups like the LDF or private citizens who previously could, creating more chaos for the 2024 elections already facing turmoil due to Trump’s decision to try to reverse his political fortunes.
One can predict that future court battles over voting rights will be waged in courthouses in places other than Georgia, like Mississippi, perhaps? And we’ll learn if young activists and protesters have the stomach to join the fray.
The League of Women Voters pointed out that “at least 322 bills restricting voter access” are being proposed nationwide. Watch for an active 2024 on the voting rights front during what’s expected to be a stormy political year.
— Mac Gordon, a native of McComb, is a retired newspaperman. He can be reached at macmarygordon@gmail.com.
This article originally appeared on Mississippi Clarion Ledger: Civil Rights Movement marks 60th anniversary
