Can America be a democracy if a minority writes the rules to entrench minority rule?
For African Americans, freedom, citizenship and the right to vote are inextricably linked. With the victory of the Union in the Civil War, the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments were passed — freeing the slaves, requiring equal protection under the law, and protecting the right to vote. Those rights were trampled by segregation. It took 100 years and the civil rights movement to end segregation and pass the Voting Rights Act.
The Biden administration still has statutory authority under what is left of the Voting Rights Act — as well as constitutional authority — to protect the right to vote. As attorney Gerald Griggs argued, the president could issue executive orders to empower the Justice Department to send in federal monitors in states that are sued by the Justice Department for violating the right to vote.
We won because people marched, demonstrated, and risked their lives to demand the right to vote. The Voting Rights Act was passed in the halls of Congress in Washington, D.C., but it was won on the bridge in Selma, Alabama. Lyndon Johnson and Congress were reacting to a demand that could no longer be ignored.
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