Like many Americans, my initial reaction was indignation to the news that on June 25, by a 5-4 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court had nullified the Voting Rights Act’s critical preclearance provision — §5 — by invalidating the coverage provision Congress had re-adopted in 2006.
My first thoughts were of the voting-rights activists crossing the Edmund Pettis Bridge on the outskirts of Selma, Ala., on March 7, 1965, only to be attacked and savagely beaten by Alabama state police, local police and vigilantes. The sordid details of that event, captured for the nation by television cameras, provoked President Lyndon Johnson and Congress to enact the act, the most successful civil rights law in our history.
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