One year ago, the Supreme Court threw out a key section of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The law gave the federal government a kind of veto power over voting arrangements in states with a history of discrimination. Now, without those protections, civil rights activists say many states are moving polling places and enacting laws that disproportionately hurt minorities.
This week, they’re turning to Congress for help. Consider David Goodman, who stands on a patch of grass outside the U.S. Capitol on a steamy morning to deliver a message to lawmakers in the marble building behind him.
“And every person has the right to vote,” Goodman says.” And any time anybody diminishes that, marginalizes it, or simply passes a law to make it inconvenient, we’re kind of back to the future. And it’s happening today.”
Fifty years ago, the Ku Klux Klan kidnapped and murdered David’s older brother Andrew Goodman and two other men working to register black voters during Freedom Summer. The killings shocked the conscience of the nation and helped lead Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act in 1965. But last year, Goodman notes, a divided Supreme Court led by Chief Justice John Roberts threw out a key part of that law.