Uriah Cty’s Post

Sumter County, Alabama and the Origins of the Voting Rights Act - PDF: https://lnkd.in/gJzr3vqh Civil disobedience can be categorized by the group engaging in it, the type of action taken, the policy to which the protestors object, or the type of relief sought. Is the group well defined or amorphous? Are the actors engaged in violence, non-violent but unlawful behavior, or behavior that is lawful but at odds with custom? Do the protestors object to an unlawful policy or one that is lawful but perceived as unjust? Are the protestors ' aims well defined or amorphous? Are they narrow or broad? Are they clearly linked with the policy that the protestors challenge? Civil disobedience is an inherently blunt instrument. It can communicate broad messages, but not details. The confrontation at the Edmund Pettus Bridge is a perfect example. It originated with voter registration drives in Selma and Marion, Alabama.509 Jimmie Lee Jackson, a black demonstrator in Marion, was killed by an Alabama State Trooper.510 From the initial suggestion of a funeral cortege going from Marion to Montgomery came the idea of a Selma-Montgomery march for voting rights.511 The marchers thus knew they wanted black voting rights; the Alabama State Troopers and the Dallas County Sheriff's deputies knew they opposed black voting rights.512 Widespread television and newspaper coverage of what came to be called "Bloody Sunday" energized the nation, the President, and Congress to "do something" to ensure black voting rights.513 However, neither the marchers, nor the mounted wielders of billy clubs, nor the media reporters were communicating the details of what that "something" should be.514 Many acts of civil disobedience have resulted in remedial actions that proved to be ineffective because the unfocused nature of the actors' grievances led to unfocused or poorly implemented solutions that lacked popular support.515

RACISM In social science, racism is understood as a system of beliefs, practices, and social relations that produce and reproduce a racial hierarchy, granting power, privilege, and advantages to some racial groups while systematically disadvantaging others. It's more than just individual prejudice or discrimination based on race; racism in social science is often viewed as a structural or institutional phenomenon that is embedded in societal norms, policies, and practices. Racism is not a natural or inborn trait; it is a learned behaviour that is shaped by social, cultural, and environmental factors. People are not born racist, but they can become racist through the influence of the society in which they are raised. There is no genetic predisposition to racism. Human genetics do not determine whether someone will be racist. Racism is a social construct, meaning it is created and perpetuated by society, not by biology. The idea that different racial groups have inherent qualities that make them superior or inferior to others is a concept that humans have developed over time. Racism from a social science perspective: STRUCTURAL RACISM: This refers to the ways in which societies are structured in ways that disadvantage certain racial groups. It includes policies, practices, and cultural norms that perpetuate inequality, even if individuals within those societies may not consciously hold racist beliefs. For example, housing policies that lead to segregated neighbourhoods or school funding systems that disadvantage predominantly minority schools are forms of structural racism. INSTITUTIONAL RACISM: This is racism that occurs within institutions like the criminal justice system, education system, or healthcare system. It can be seen in practices and policies that systematically result in different outcomes for different racial groups. For instance, racial disparities in sentencing in the criminal justice system are an example of institutional racism. CULTURAL RACISM: This refers to the ways in which the dominant culture in a society perpetuates stereotypes and norms that marginalize or demean certain racial groups. Media representations that portray certain racial groups in a negative light or cultural norms that valorize certain racial characteristics over others are examples of cultural racism. INTERPERSONAL RACISM: While social science often focuses on larger systems and structures, interpersonal racism is still an important concept. This refers to the racist attitudes and behaviours that occur between individuals. It includes acts of discrimination, prejudice, and hostility directed at individuals based on their race. INTERNALIZED RACISM: This is when individuals from marginalized racial groups begin to believe and internalize the negative stereotypes and attitudes that are prevalent in the dominant culture. This can lead to self-hatred, low self-esteem, and a sense of inferiority among those who are targeted by racism.

Turnout is often the major factor in elections. Firing up your base can be a challenge, but engaging them and fighting for their causes is important. Never see an election as a sure thing, either a win or a loss. Sometimes events and other factors may bring about upsets or a change in voting patterns. #voting #votingmatters #voterturnout #elections #elections2024 #votingrights #governance #localgovernment #stategovernment #federalgovernment

A Decade-Long Erosion: The Impact of the Shelby County Decision on the Political Participation and Representation of Black People and Other People of Color in the Deep South - PDF: https://lnkd.in/dXE96fg8 The opinion struck down a key provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965—Section 4(b)’s coverage formula—eliminating a critical accountability tool that had protected the voting rights of Black, Indigenous and other People of Color (BIPOC) in states with a history of discriminatory voting practices for almost half a century. In Shelby County’s wake, states across the Deep South passed voter suppression bills with reckless abandonment of democratic principles guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, leading to a pervasive and damning path of voting barriers for BIPOC voters. A Decade-Long Erosion: The Impact of the Shelby County Decision on the Political Participation and Representation of Black People and Other People of Color in the Deep South, a report by the Southern Poverty Law Center, examines the voting rights landscape of the Deep South 10 years after the Shelby County decision. In this report, we outline how Southern states—including Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi—have created myriad hurdles in an attempt to suppress the BIPOC vote. This report focuses on the South because of the region’s intractable and pervasive history of racial discrimination in voting—a history that, since emancipation and the granting of the vote to formerly enslaved people, has been marred by numerous voter suppression tactics aimed to limit Black political participation and representation. Indeed, for several generations after passage of the 15th Amendment, Southern legislatures advanced new barriers to the vote with little to no oversight—maintaining their focus on Black voter suppression while simultaneously expanding the impact of their problematic tactics to also disenfranchise other communities of color. It was not until the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that voters of color finally had protection from this continued onslaught, making Shelby County’s elimination of this critical coverage all the more devastating. As a result of this harmful decision, state legislatures across the South have operated unchecked on several fronts over the last decade to attack our democratic process and stymie BIPOC political participation.

XENOPHOBIC CONSPIRACY THEORIES AND THE LONG ROOTS OF JANUARY SIXTH - PDF: https://lnkd.in/gyQwJmHh Racist Regress Can Be a Reality Despite the powerful continuities in white supremacy, it is also crucial to highlight historical discontinuities—and especially those that disrupt the dominant race progress narrative. One might justifiably assert that there are expressions of white nationalism that are worse now than during the civil rights movement. Recent presidential politics offer examples. Most conspicuously, neither the Citizens’ Council nor the John Birch Society, as despicable as they were, ever attempted to overturn a presidential election by assaulting the U.S. Capitol.428 Goldwater ran for president in 1964, and he lost by a landslide.429 Trump, on the other hand, was indisputably elected president in 2016 and garnered a whopping seventy-four million votes in his 2020 loss to Biden, the second largest vote total in presidential history after Biden.430 One way to understand this historical discontinuity is that a twenty-first century white nationalist is able to profit politically and to ramp up white electoral anger in ways that those decades ago could never do. This is racist regress. Recent developments in the other federal branches sadly challenge the notion of inevitable racial progress. During the civil rights movement, activists won voting rights legislation despite the widespread xenophobic attacks on the voting rights struggle. Although Congress, for example, passed the Civil Rights Act of 1957 despite Strom Thurmond’s filibuster, today the filibuster has proven to be an unmovable barrier in the march for federal voting rights legislation.431 Moreover, the Roberts Court is far from the Warren Court in the area of voting rights. In fact, in 2013, the Roberts Court’s decision in Shelby County v. Holder invalidated the Voting Rights Act’s coverage formula, the very same one the Warren Court upheld in South Carolina v. Katzenbach.432 The Roberts Court’s attack on voting rights continued in 2021. In Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee, the Court upheld two Arizona voting laws purportedly enacted to prevent voter fraud, but that have a disparate racial impact on voting opportunity.433 The Roberts Court ignored that state lawmakers relied on a false, conspiracy theory centered on “illegal alien” voting to propel the legislation forward.434 Contemporary voting rights activists cannot expect to receive justice through Congress or the Court in the ways they did a half century ago. Finally, recent developments in technology suggest that ending the spread of xenophobic conspiracy theories, and more broadly, white nationalism will not be easy.

MAKING THE CASE FOR A THIRD RECONSTRUCTION BASED ON THE STATE OF VOTING RIGHTS IN AMERICA “ - PDF: https://lnkd.in/gjfYu65i Along the unbroken chain of racism that links America’s past to its present, there have been two points when the federal government— otherwise complicit or complacent—saw the mistreatment of African Americans as intolerable”: the Civil War and the Civil Rights Movement.1 Although no provision of the Constitution or constitutional amendment directly prescribes the right to cast a vote, the Fifteenth Amendment prohibits discrimination on the basis of “race, color, or previous condition of servitude” wherever the right to vote exists.2 The right to vote is pivotal, not just for its own sake but for what it represents and can create: equal dignity, access to education, economic opportunity, safety, and more. Despite the progress of the post-Civil War era and Civil Rights Movement, racial discrimination and the systemic deprivation of voting rights continue to plague this country, particularly in the last decade. Recent Supreme Court decisions, Shelby County v. Holder and Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee, and state-government actions present modern-day analogs of the antidemocratic efforts undertaken after the post-Civil War Reconstruction to systematically deprive any non-White man of the power to vote.3 Shelby County signified the start of this second retrenchment in voting rights in 2013, and Brnovich solidified it eight years later. Given the patterns and lessons from the post-Civil War Reconstruction and Second Reconstruction in the mid-twentieth century, this Comment argues that the current state of voting rights indicates that this country requires a Third Reconstruction to bring America closer to its founding ideals.  The United States of America began with the idea of a representative democracy and equality for all citizens,4 yet the foundational documents of this nation protected the horror of chattel slavery and failed to explicitly guarantee all citizens the right to vote.5 During the Founding era, most state legislatures only granted White, land-owning men the right to vote.6 It is essential to understand the cycles of progress and setbacks in the fight for racial equality in the right to vote throughout our country’s history. The right to vote is the basis for the rest of democracy; it is fundamental.7 It provides citizens the ability to hold their government accountable and structurally confers equality among citizens where one person equals one vote.8 The ability to choose elected officials who truly represent the values, interests, and goals of the people in turn shapes every other aspect of our lives and forms the basis from which our other rights derive. And once the right to vote is conferred on some people, equal protection demands it be conferred on all citizens.9 

The Importance of Voting: A Civic Duty with Global Impact People often underestimate how close we have come to full-blown anarchy in this great nation and the world at large. If the United States were to fall or fail, it would inevitably drag the rest of the “civilized” world along with it, bit by bit. This is an unavoidable reality. If, God forbid, the recent assassination attempt on a presidential candidate had been successful, life as we know it would have slowly but surely ceased to exist. Throughout history, the right to vote has been a hard-fought battle. From the American Revolution, which established the foundation of democracy, to the Civil Rights Movement, which sought to ensure that all citizens, regardless of race, could exercise their right to vote, the struggle for voting rights has been central to the American experience. The suffragette movement, which secured women’s right to vote, further exemplifies the importance of this civic duty. These historical milestones remind us that voting is not just a right but a responsibility that has been earned through the sacrifices of countless individuals. The global impact of the United States’ political stability cannot be overstated. As a leading democratic nation, the U.S. serves as a model for other countries. When American democracy is strong, it inspires and supports democratic movements worldwide. Conversely, instability in the U.S. can embolden authoritarian regimes and undermine global efforts towards democracy and human rights. The ripple effects of American political decisions are felt across the globe, influencing international policies, economic stability, and even social norms. It is incumbent upon each person who cares about their future and their loved ones’ future to take action. If you care about humanity and truly understand your purpose in the here and now, you will do the right thing and cast a vote, one way or the other. The one thing you must not and cannot do is sit back and watch what direction the bus will take – you are on the same bus. It is your civic duty to cast a ballot when you are able to participate in elections. If you cannot cast a ballot, educate and encourage the people within your sphere of influence to take part in this God-given right. If you care about someone, urge them to vote, regardless of whom they choose to vote for. It is this simple act of civic participation that makes us truly human. V.O.T.E. Voice your choice Obligate yourself to participate Take action for democracy Empower your community and the world Take A Stand! 👍

📢 Voting is one of the most powerful tools we have to protect our civil and human rights. Your vote is precious, almost sacred. It is the most powerful nonviolent tool we have to create a more perfect union. - John Lewis People Power United and Laurie Woodward Garcia Sep 16 - People Power United champions progressive values and power to the people. The 2024 election depends on us, and we are attempting to persuade people to vote for Freedom over Fascism. If you wish to support our efforts, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Happy National Voter Registration Day Eve! Voting lies at the heart of democracy, giving people the power to shape their governance. Through voting, citizens ensure that laws and policies are created with the public's interests in mind, reflecting the people's collective will. When we vote, we choose leaders and representatives who make healthcare, education, economic policy, and justice decisions. These decisions impact our daily lives and can safeguard or threaten our fundamental rights and freedoms. By participating in elections, we affirm our right to be heard and influence our society's direction. The current erosion of our rights, freedoms, democracy, and the rule of law directly results from the apathy of voters who don't care to vote and those who do vote but fail to follow up and hold our leaders accountable. History shows us that when voting rights are restricted or suppressed, it often erodes civil and human rights. Discriminatory practices, whether they are gerrymandering or other forms of voter suppression, can disproportionately affect marginalized communities, denying them fair representation. Safeguarding voting rights is essential to ensure that every person, regardless of race, gender, or socioeconomic status, has an equal voice in shaping the policies that affect their lives. In the face of challenges such as inequality, discrimination, and injustice, voting is a form of empowerment. It allows us to push for change, advocate for laws protecting human rights, and support leaders prioritizing the common good. Every election is an opportunity to build a society that upholds dignity, equality, and justice for all. By voting, we defend our rights and contribute to a system where everyone's rights are recognized and respected. Let us honor all who came before us to champion our rights, freedoms, democracy, and the rule of law with action!

Today in American History: On June 25, 2013, in a 5-4 decision in Shelby County v. Holder, the Supreme Court struck down Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and effectively gutted one of the nation’s most important and successful civil rights laws. The decision unleashed a surge in voter suppression measures—including strict voter ID laws, cutting voting times, and purging voter rolls. Despite adoption in 1870 of the Fifteenth Amendment barring racial discrimination in voting, Southern states used poll taxes, literacy tests, and violence to deny African-Americans the right to vote for another century. In the dissent of the 2013 decision, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote, "the (Supreme) Court appears to believe that the Voting Rights Act's success in 1965 means that preclearance is no longer needed. With that belief, and the argument derived from it, history repeats itself.” I will try to share these historical nuggets of wisdom weekly, but you can sign up to receive a daily, historical calendar entry from the wonderful team at the Equal Justice Initiative.

On this day - June 25, 2013 Supreme Court Invalidates Key Provision of Voting Rights Act at Southern States’ Request On June 25, 2013, in a 5-4 decision in Shelby County v. Holder, the Supreme Court struck down Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and effectively gutted one of the nation’s most important and successful civil rights laws. Despite adoption in 1870 of the Fifteenth Amendment barring racial discrimination in voting, Southern states and others used poll taxes, literacy tests, and violence to deny Black Americans the right to vote for another century. Unchecked and systematic voter suppression targeted African American communities in the South for generations. After decades of organized civil rights activism, the Voting Rights Act (VRA) finally became law on August 6, 1965. It outlawed discriminatory barriers to voting like poll taxes and literacy tests and also imposed strict oversight upon states and districts with histories of voter discrimination. The new law quickly proved extremely effective; Black registration rates soon rose throughout the South, and Black officials were elected at the highest rates since Reconstruction. In this way, the Act directly confronted and addressed a century of racist voting policies. Section 4 of the Act required jurisdictions with the worst records of discrimination to obtain “preclearance” from the federal government before changing voting laws. However, in Shelby County v. Holder, Alabama officials argued that preclearance was no longer constitutional or necessary, and the Supreme Court agreed. Chief Justice Roberts reasoned for the majority that “things have changed dramatically” since 1965—voting tests are illegal, racial disparities in voter turnout and registration have diminished, and people of color hold elected office “in record numbers.” Yet voting discrimination—and the need for the Voting Rights Act—continues in the present day, the dissenters pointed out. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg noted in dissent that covered jurisdictions continue to propose voting law changes that are rejected under the VRA, “auguring that barriers to minority voting would quickly resurface were the preclearance remedy eliminated.” The decision drastically reduced the VRA’s power to combat “second-generation barriers” to voting, like racial gerrymandering, which minimize the impact of minority votes. “The sad irony of today’s decision lies in its utter failure to grasp why the VRA has proven effective,” wrote Justice Ginsburg. “The Court appears to believe that the VRA's success in eliminating the specific devices extant in 1965 means that preclearance is no longer needed. With that belief, and the argument derived from it, history repeats itself.” The decision unleashed a surge in voter suppression measures—including strict voter ID laws, cutting voting times, restricting registration, and purging voter rolls—that are undermining voter participation by people of color today.