The decision, authored by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, is the fifth major ruling that has strangled efforts to protect the democratic rights of Black and minority Americans, according to legal experts. The rightwing majority voted on ideological lines, overturning the will of Congress, critics say. The decision was made in the name of the equal protection clause, which was designed to protect minority voters.
The 2013 ruling Shelby v. Holder, also authored by Roberts, ended federal oversight of electoral changes in largely southern states. Alabama's legislature meets today in a special session to redraw its congressional maps in response to the decision.
In 2023, the Supreme Court ruled that Alabama's maps violated Section 2 and diluted Black voting power, leading to the election of Congressman Shomari Figures alongside Congresswoman Terri Sewell. Minority voting rights groups fear both could lose their seats if new maps are drawn. There is one court order still in place that says Alabama has to wait until 2030, but lawmakers have asked the judge to overrule it in light of the recent decision.
The ruling could carry significant implications for this year's midterm elections, analysts say. Tennessee Republicans have already approved a new US House map that carves up a majority-Black district in Memphis, and the Virginia Supreme Court voided Democrats' bid to redraw the state's map. According to historians, the 1965 Voting Rights Act is the most important piece of legislation in US history.
Before the VRA, the white majority could systematically disenfranchise Black citizens through violence, poll taxes, and gerrymandering. The VRA enforced the 15th and 19th Amendments, ensuring every citizen the ability to participate in democratic self-government. It opened a door for Black political power: in 1964 there were 4 Black people in Congress, by 1968 there were 9, and today there are 67 Black and 56 Latino members.
In 1964 there were 13 women in Congress; today there are 154. The 19th Amendment did nothing for Black women until the VRA, and 43 years after its passage, the US elected a Black president. In March 1965, Black protesters were beaten by Alabama state troopers on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, an event known as Bloody Sunday.
Sheyann Webb-Christburg, a civil rights activist known as the 'smallest freedom fighter,' was eight years old when she crossed the bridge, according to her account. She has said she lived next door to Brown Chapel church in Selma and, despite her parents' fears of the Ku Klux Klan, slipped out to attend meetings. She has recounted that someone introduced her to Dr.
' On Bloody Sunday, Webb-Christburg has described seeing hundreds of policemen with teargas masks, state troopers on horses, and dogs. She has said leaders John Lewis and Hosea Williams refused to turn the march around, and then teargas burst, people were beaten, and horses trampled marchers. She has recalled teargas burning her eyes, and Hosea Williams picking her up as her legs still galloped.
She told him to put her down because he wasn't running fast enough. The march was an effort for African Americans to gain the right to vote, and much blood, sweat, and tears were shed. Webb-Christburg has stated that the Supreme Court's action is a way to discriminate and silence voters who fought for that right.
Otis Dionne Culliver, senior pastor of Tabernacle Baptist Church, spoke to his congregation about preserving civil rights gains.