"Today is a towering and certain mark that, in this generation, that promise will be kept. In our time the two currents will finally mingle and rush as one great stream across the uncertain and the marvelous years of the America that is yet to come.
This act flows from a clear and simple wrong. Its only purpose is to right that wrong. Millions of Americans are denied the right to vote because of their color. This law will ensure them the right to vote. The wrong is one which no American, in his heart, can justify. The right is one which no American, true to our principles, can deny. [snip]
This law covers many pages. But the heart of the act is plain. Wherever, by clear and objective standards, states and counties are using regulations, or laws, or tests to deny the right to vote, then they will be struck down. If it is clear that State officials still intend to discriminate, then Federal examiners will be sent in to register all eligible voters. When the prospect of discrimination is gone, the examiners will be immediately withdrawn.
And, under this act, if any county anywhere in this Nation does not want Federal intervention it need only open its polling places to all of its people." -- from remarks by President Lyndon B. Johnson, at the signing of the Voting Rights Act on August 6, 1965.
Few would have thought that nearly 60 years later a right-wing movement in the U.S. would imperil that right to vote. With their decision in Shelby County v. Holder, the right-wing Supreme Court majority voted 5 to 4 to strike down the Voting Rights law's provision that certain states and local government get pre-clearance for any changes to their voting laws, based on their history of discrimination. That, and Republican / New Confederate party efforts to gerrymander Congressional districts and impose restrictions on voting that targeted minority and disadvantaged voters, is giving Republicans improper advantages in states and districts that should be more competitive. The ultimate attack on voting rights was the Malignant Loser's Big Lie and efforts to overturn the 2020 Presidential elections, which would have disenfranchised the 81 million voters for President Biden and ended our democratic republic's existence.
Elsewhere in his remarks, Johnson emphasized the need to register to vote, go out and vote, and then insist on your vote being counted. That's truer today than ever before.
(photo: President Johnson hands a signing pen to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. White House photo)
