Americans been seeing increasing attacks on our voting rights in the past few years, but the recent Supreme Court decision in Louisiana vs. Callais just kicked us back to a time before the Civil Rights Act.
If you’ve been seeing all the commentary and hot takes but don’t fully understand what just happened and what it means, don’t worry — we’ve got you.
And if all of this makes you want to do something, we've got you there, too. You can reach out to your Congressperson and tell them to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, or you can support the planned march for civil rights in Alabama this weekend. The day of action starts on Saturday with a prayer gathering at the foot of the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, the same ground where marchers were beaten on Bloody Sunday in 1965.
Is it depressing to find ourselves fighting the same battles that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. marched for back in 1965? Of course. But they didn’t give up, and neither will we. We owe it to ourselves, our children, and the brave people who fought and died for voting rights a half-century ago.
In Dr. King’s words, said to his fellow marchers once the third march from Selma reached Montgomery: “Let us therefore continue our triumphant march to the realization of the American dream.”
