Editorial: Voting rights renewal would be fitting tribute
John Lewis loved the United States. He devoted his life to its betterment and challenged this country to be a more perfect version of itself.
Lewis was a man of principle. He was a man of faith. An activist who risked his life for racial equality and social justice, he became a tireless public servant who worked to see those ideals enshrined in law and enjoyed by all.
His death on Friday, as well as that of C.T. Vivian, a preacher, organizer and compatriot to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., reminds us how near we are to the struggles of the civil rights era — and how the progress they secured remains vulnerable, requiring a vigorous defense.
Lewis and Vivian both trace their history in activism to Nashville and James Lawson, who taught non-violent direct action to the city’s university students. Lawson’s philosophy, shared by King and widely practiced by civil rights protesters, imbued the movement with a moral clarity and strength.
They marched in cities across the South to call for an end to segregation and participated in Freedom Rides aimed at integrating interstate buses. Many of those actions resulted in personal harm and property damage by opponents fiercely determined to stop the march of progress.
At age 23, Lewis became chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and helped organize the 1963 March on Washington. He voiced opposition to proposed civil rights legislation because it didn’t do enough to protect Black communities from harm at the hands of the state.
The non-violent approach had an especially powerful effect in 1965, when Lewis helped organized a march of about 600 people across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, for the right to vote. Alabama was one of several states which used a variety of measures to disenfranchise Black citizens in violation of the U.S. Constitution.
Lewis was among the many peaceful protesters beaten bloody that day, his skull fractured by a blow from a police baton. It was the first of three marches across the bridge that drew national attention to the situation, coming as they did after passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964.
It showed America that considerable work remained and resulted in the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the seminal framework that protected Black voting rights and discouraged racial gerrymandering from silencing Black voices in government.
Voting rights would come to define Lewis’s career after the Selma march. During his time in Congress, he was relentless in his efforts to protect access to the polls — a cause for which he risked his life.
It was no easy hill to climb, particularly in recent years. U.S. Supreme Court, in 2013, effectively gutted the Voting Rights Act in its Shelby County v. Holder decision, opening the door to widespread disenfranchisement and voter suppression.
“Our country has changed,” Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote for the majority. “While any racial discrimination in voting is too much, Congress must ensure that the legislation it passes to remedy that problem speaks to current conditions.”
Yet, since that ruling, some 1,700 polling places have been closed, the vast majority of which predominantly serve Black and minority communities. Purges of voter rolls have impeded eligible citizens from participating in their democracy. Laws which discourage participation and otherwise seek to shape the electorate have passed in droves.
The ruling was an egregious error, one of the worst by the Roberts court. But it also made clear that Congress could intervene with a new Voting Rights Act, something the federal legislature has yet to do.
The House passed two bills to accomplish this, but those measures have languished in the Senate. Now is the time to guard against further erosion of the franchise and ensure that elections are an accurate representation of the public will.
Lewis, Vivian and so many other heroes carried the torch long enough. It’s our turn and we must not let them down.
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©2020 The Virginian-Pilot (Norfolk, Va.)
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