In 1965, future Democratic Congressman John Lewis led peaceful Black demonstrators across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, in a march for voting rights. Met with violence by armed state troopers, Lewis and his fellow protesters refused to fight back, even as the troopers beat them with clubs, whips, and barbed wire. Lewis' skull was fractured in the melee, but his resolve most certainly was not. Several months later, Congress passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
These hard-fought protections stood firm until 2013, when the right-leaning Supreme Court began chipping away at the VRA. Since then, the GOP has passed a crushing wave of racist, voter-restriction laws. This past April, the Supreme Court's conservative super-majority delivered a deathblow to the Voting Rights Act, and Republicans across the South immediately leapt into action to usher in Jim Crow 2.0 and strip Black communities of their voting power.
Add your name to demand the Senate passes the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, restoring the protections of the original Voting Rights Act of 1965.
The act restores key elements removed by recent Supreme Court rulings, mandates much more oversight over new voting laws, and reinstates preclearance, which would force Southern states to have voting laws approved by the courts before they could be implemented as a way to put a check on historically — and actively — racist states like Alabama and Louisiana.
If we want to preserve our democracy and ensure all citizens have a political voice, we must pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and restore the VRA.
Sign here to tell the Senate to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act!
