Rj,

Today marks 59 years since brave civil rights foot soldiers crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, as they marched for their fundamental right to vote. They were met with state troopers wielding billy clubs and beaten mercilessly as the world watched.

They were not deterred. Their efforts led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which would help protect the right to vote for communities of color for decades. Their bravery —  and subsequent victory — exemplify what the late Congressman John Lewis, a leader of the march as a young man, reminded us: “Democracy is not a state. It is an act, and each generation must do its part.”

These words still ring true today, a decade into a new era of voting laws designed to suppress the vote. The 2013 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Shelby v. Holder opened the floodgates for new anti-voting laws, especially those in the Deep South, by gutting a key provision of the Voting Rights Act. As a result, today Black voters have fewer voting rights protections than in 1965 after passage of the Voting Rights Act.

And, as new data demonstrates, the turnout gap between voters of color and white voters has grown in the decade since the Shelby decision, especially in states that needed federal approval for voting law changes under the act.

Read more here

Sincerely,

Your friends at the Southern Poverty Law Center

P.S. Read more about SPLC staff and supporters’ experience at the commemorative Edmund Pettus Bridge crossing during this year’s Jubilee celebration.

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