The US Supreme Court, Race & the Right to Vote

In perhaps its most insidious decision in nearly a century, the U.S. Supreme Court disemboweled Section 2 of the landmark Voting Rights Act (VRA) of 1965, the “crown jewel” of the U.S. civil rights movement.

The VRA ended Jim Crow-era election procedures that precluded Black people from voting in the South through intimidation, literacy tests and  poll taxes. It was part of a system of post-Civil War legalized racial segregation meant to restore white supremacy after the end of slavery and the federal, military occupation of the South.

Jim Crow lasted from 1877 until passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act the following year.

Section 2 of the VRA allows states to draw voting districts that benefit candidates from racial minorities and enables citizens to challenge election maps as racially discriminatory.

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