Helen Butler, the executive director of the Georgia Coalition for the People’s Agenda, stated recently, “we just celebrated Bloody Sunday, and we’re fighting the same battles.” She’s right.
March 7 marked the anniversary of the Alabama protest of 1965, sparked by the shooting of Jimmy Lee Jackson by an Alabama State trooper a month earlier. Six hundred marchers led by the late Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) assembled in Selma on that day over 50 years ago, and they attempted to cross the Edmund Pettis Bridge over the Alabama River in route to Montgomery. The marchers were blocked by Alabama State troopers and local police who ordered them to turn back. When the protesters refused, the officers beat and tear-gassed the marchers, sending over 50 people to the hospital. On March 21, 1965 the federal Voting Rights Act was passed, enforcing the 15th Amendment to the Constitution, a milestone in ensuring the vote for minorities.
But voting rights are again under attack.
It seems we have time-warped back to 1965. Although Congress recently passed a landmark voting rights (HR1) bill on March 3rd, states are increasingly passing laws that restrict voting. Following unexpected Democratic victories in Georgia, twenty-eight states have introduced 106 restrictive bills for the 2021 legislative session, and the majority of them seek to put limitations on who can vote by mail and how. Others are imposing photo ID laws.
The Georgia Senate recently passed a bill criminalizing activities like helping people fill out absentee ballot applications. It also requires an applicant to either upload a picture of a photo ID or submits photocopies of an ID. They discriminate against the handicapped, those without a photo ID, and those without access to a photocopier.
They also approved a bill repealing “no-excuse” absentee voting. Some 1.3 million voters cast ballots by mail in 2020, included 450,000 Republicans. They are considering a bill to end automatic voter registration. About 5 million of the peach states’ 7.6 million voters have used automatic voter registration since its implementation in 2016. The Georgia House passed a bill that cuts weekend voting days, including Sundays, when Black churches traditionally hold “souls to the polls” drives to get people to vote.
These bills would also restrict the use of mail ballot drop boxes, add new voter ID requirements for mail-in ballots, inhibit counties from accepting grants from nonprofits that strive to ensure voting fairness, limit the amount of time mail ballots are sent out and returned, and even criminalize the distribution of food and water to voters waiting in line at polling places. Georgia Senate Republicans would curtail mail-in voting to the disabled, people who are traveling out of state, deployed military members, and those over 65.
These bills represent the most sustained effort to roll back voting rights since the Jim Crow era. Jim Crow was not a real person, but rather a character portrayed by a white actor named Dartmouth Rice, who performed in black face as Jim Crow. His character was an elderly, clumsy, dim-witted minstrel. Jim Crow laws first emerged in the late 19th and early 20th centuries primarily in southern states. Following the Civil War, state legislatures were dominated by whites who were horrified by the idea of African Americans voting, so they enacted laws that enforced racial segregation. Jim Crow laws legitimized the disenfranchisement of African Americans and minorities. Examples of some laws include; White motorists always had the right-of-way, Blacks could not display affection in public, Blacks could not offer a handshake to a White person, and a Black male could not light a cigarette for a White female.
Stacy Abrams, the Democratic gubernatorial nominee in 2018 and founder of the voting rights group Fair Fight Action, stated in a recent interview, “we are seeing, again and again, this version of Jim Crow in a suit and tie,” adding, “because it is designed explicitly for the same reason as Jim Crow did, to block communities of color from active participation in choosing the leadership that will guide their democracy.”
Georgia was no doubt a shock to Republicans. It’s interesting to note that Georgia was the first state in the country to implement automatic voter registration, early voting, and no-excuse absentee voting. But after Democrats carried the state last November, state legislators want to move the goalposts. The bills passed by the legislature target voting methods used mostly by Democrats and people of color while giving preferential treatment to Republican constituencies.
According to Rep. Renitta Shannon (D-GA), “Republicans got the message that they were in a political death spiral, and now they’re doing anything they can to silence the voices of Black and Brown voters, specifically because they largely powered these wins.” She is right. Georgia Republicans have promoted mail-in voting for years, writing the lawthat created no-excuse absentee voting in 2005. But now they are changing their tune, especially after 65% of mail-in voters voted for Joe Biden. White mail-in voters dropped from 67% in 2016 to 54% in 2020. Black mail-in voters, on the other hand, rose from 23% to 31%.
In 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated a key point of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The Court struck down a formula at the heart of the Voting Rights Act, that required certain states with a history of discrimination against minority voters to get pre-clearance by the federal government for any changes to voting laws. The purpose was to block discriminatory voting laws before they are passed. But the court ruled it unconstitutional, citing state’s rights. Since then, an onslought of suppressive laws have emerged across the South, from voter ID requirements in Texas, (which took to reverse), to the disenfranchisement of Black voters in North Carolina. We have heard the argument that these bills are necessary to restore confidence to the voting process. But we know better. It’s not about election integrity. What is happening across the U. S. is an alarming and blatant attempt to disenfranchise African American and other minority voters.
It is my sincere hope we will see the passage of the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act in the near future. It would restore pre-clearance to states with a history of discrimination and abolish Jim Crow voting laws. Stacy Abrams and Georgia rescued the Democratic party. We owe it to Georgians and all Americans to guarantee voting rights.
Many thanks to Thom Campbell for editing this blog.