If We Lose Our Voting Rights? Part-2

Photo Description:
This image, created by the author, envisions what a loss of voting rights and a return to modern-day slavery could look like in 2026–2027. It depicts a young Black woman sitting quietly in a white man’s kitchen, her presence fading into the background—almost part of the wall itself. The older man, with gray hair and authority etched into his posture, occupies the space as its master. She is there to serve his needs, a haunting portrayal of control and erasure that echoes the power dynamics of slavery reborn in contemporary form.

Remember? Why We Fought!

As the world fought tyranny abroad, Black Americans faced their own battle for freedom at home. Returning veterans demanded the democracy they had risked their lives to defend, sparking the first major push for civil rights since Reconstruction. In courtrooms, churches, and the streets, African Americans challenged Jim Crow’s grip on the ballot box. From the Supreme Court’s rejection of white-only primaries to President Truman’s desegregation of the military and the first civil rights law in nearly a century, the 1940s and ’50s marked a turning point—when the fight for voting rights reignited, setting the stage for the mass movement that would soon transform the nation.

World War II and Early Civil Rights Efforts (1940s–1950s)

Black Voter Registration in 1940: By 1940, a mere 3–5% of eligible African Americans in the South were registered to vote, a testament to decades of Jim Crow suppression [14]. This stark figure began to change only after World War II. The war’s rhetoric of freedom versus fascism, combined with Black veterans’ return, galvanized demands for civil rights.
Smith v. Allwright (1944): In this landmark case, the Supreme Court ruled 8–1 that white-only Democratic primaries were unconstitutional, reversing its earlier stance [17]. This decision opened the door for Black political participation in the one-party South.
President Truman’s Actions: President Harry Truman, acknowledging Black voters’ growing influence in Northern states, established a presidential Committee on Civil Rights (1946) and became the first modern president to champion civil rights. In 1948, he ordered the desegregation of the military and spoke out against poll taxes and lynching.
Civil Rights Act of 1957: After decades of inaction, Congress passed the first civil rights law since Reconstruction – the Civil Rights Act of 1957. This law created the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and a Civil Rights Division in the Justice Department, empowering federal prosecutors to seek court injunctions against interference in voting [18].
Grassroots Organizing – Early 1960s: On the ground, Black activists intensified voter registration efforts. In 1960, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) was formed, and young organizers like John Lewis, Diane Nash, Ella Baker, and Bob Moses fanned out across the Deep South to register voters and challenge Jim Crow. Medgar Evers, NAACP field secretary in Mississippi, led persistent registration drives until his assassination in 1963.

The Civil Rights Movement and the Voting Rights Act (1960–1965)

Freedom Summer and MFDP (1964): Civil rights organizations launched “Freedom Summer” in 1964, sending volunteers (Black and white) into Mississippi to register Black voters and establish Freedom Schools. Fannie Lou Hamer’s televised testimony exposed the brutality of Mississippi’s all-white political system [19].
24th Amendment (1964): The nation ratified the 24th Amendment in January 1964, banning poll taxes in federal elections. [20]
Selma and “Bloody Sunday” (1965): In early 1965, only 2% of eligible Black residents in Selma, Alabama were registered to vote. The brutal attack on peaceful marchers on the Edmund Pettus Bridge shocked the nation and helped build support for the Voting Rights Act [21].
Voting Rights Act of 1965: Spurred by Selma, President Lyndon B. Johnson introduced a comprehensive voting rights bill. Congress passed it within months, and Johnson signed it on August 6, 1965. The Act outlawed literacy tests and required jurisdictions with histories of discrimination to obtain federal approval before changing voting laws [25].
Immediate Impact of VRA: The transformation was swift. Federal registrars arrived in Mississippi within days, registering 250,000 new Black voters across the South by the end of 1965 [27]. In Mississippi, registration rose from 7% to 59% by 1967 [29].

Post-VRA Progress and Ongoing Struggles (late 1960s–1980s)

Eliminating Remaining Barriers: Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections (1966) struck down state poll taxes as unconstitutional under the 14th Amendment [32].
Rising Black Political Representation: The late 1960s and 1970s saw an explosion of Black political participation. The voter registration gap between Black and white Southerners dropped from nearly 30 points in 1960 to just 8 by 1971 [33].
VRA Expansions (1970, 1975, 1982): Congress reauthorized and expanded the Voting Rights Act multiple times. In 1970 it banned literacy tests; in 1975 it extended protections to language minorities; in 1982 it added a “results” test to strengthen protections against discriminatory laws [38].
Combating Vote Dilution: Lawsuits targeted racial gerrymandering and at-large elections that diluted minority votes. In White v. Regester (1973), the Supreme Court struck down Texas’s multimember districts as discriminatory [39].
Continued Resistance and Progress: By the late 1980s, over 7,000 Black elected officials served nationwide—an extraordinary rise from a few hundred in 1965 [40].

As the new millennium dawned, Black political power had reached heights once thought impossible—from local offices to the presidency itself. Yet beneath that progress, a quiet countercurrent was gathering strength. Court battles over redistricting, voter ID laws, and federal oversight hinted that the hard-won gains of the past half-century were no longer secure. In Part 3 of If We Lose Our Voting Rights?, we enter the era of rollback and resistance—the years when the Supreme Court’s Shelby decision would dismantle key protections of the Voting Rights Act and open the door to a new generation of state-level suppression laws.