Voting rights anniversary spotlights America’s enduring anti-Black contempt

Civil rights leaders, academics and Democratic officials marked the 61st anniversary of the Voting Rights Act by cataloguing its dismantling, citing the 2013 Supreme Court decision ending federal preclearance and a more recent ruling striking down a Louisiana majority-minority congressional district as unconstitutional gerrymandering. A 2023 analysis found at least 29 states passed 94 restrictive voting laws in the decade after the 2013 ruling.

Former Attorney General Eric Holder attributed a 'modern-day political Jim Crow' to what he called the Roberts court's long campaign against voting rights. Virginia Rep. Jennifer McClellan, who authored a state-level Voting Rights Act in 2021, said the federal law is 'on life support' even as her state remains an outlier in providing protections.

Legal scholars quoted note that while overt violence against Black voters has receded, redistricting now achieves similar suppression of political voice, with felon disenfranchisement and ID laws compounding the effect — and warn that voters who conclude their ballots don't matter may simply stop showing up.

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