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WASHINGTON - The right to vote is a sacred democratic principal that holds a special place in the hearts of African Americans. It was never given to us nor did we ever truly inherited it. The right to vote was a precious prize for our victory in the arduous struggles to overcome the humiliations of slavery and the stigmas of segregation that culminated in the bloody battles of the civil rights era.
It wasn't until the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that this inalienable right was truly secured, not just for us, but all Americans whose right to the franchise could be denied by the color of their skin. It’s a right that still faces a struggle for renewal, despite the advances of the last thirty years.
Members of the U.S. Senate who take up the bill this week will face the same temptation to weaken the legislation that slowed the U.S. House of Representatives, which finally passed the bill in an overwhelming vote of 390-33 last week.
Conservatives whose efforts to weaken the bill failed in the House have been urging members of the Senate to make it easier for the government to turn a blind eye to the various tactics that have been used to prevent Blacks and others from registering and voting and to curtail multi-lingual ballots which aid those for whom English is a second language.
The voting rights act has been a success. It has helped increase the number of African American and Latino Congressional members from 14 and seven respectively in 1971 to 43 and 27 in 2006.
Yet the protections guaranteed by the VRA are as necessary today as they were when President Lyndon Johnson signed the law 41 years ago. Recent national elections in Florida (2000) and Ohio (2004) provide ample evidence of voter intimidation and suppression. With the current wave of hostility and anti-immigrant hysteria, can we really put it past some racist official to curb the rights of those who might look different or have a different culture?
Senators, especially Southern members, will face opposition from the children of Bilbo, the direct descendants of the very people who had in years past set in place the Jim Crow laws which blocked African Americans from participating in elections. The parties might be different, but the racist ideology is still the same.
However, if the Senate as expected does the right thing by finishing the work started in the House, they will accomplish something just as powerful as President's Johnson's pen stroke in 1965. America will move forward, one step away farther away from our history of slavery and racial segregation.
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