A civil rights icon said on Sunday that the Supreme Court’s recent “seismic shock” echoes back to a time when the U.S. government used its power to prevent Black people from being able to vote.
Press Robinson, 88, who was the first member of his family to vote and the first Black member of the Baton Rouge school board, told the Washington Post recently that the Supreme Court’s decision in Louisiana v. Callais is likely to undo decades of progress made to guarantee communities of color the right to vote. He added that the efforts are unlikely to be contained in Louisiana, and that it shows discrimination is not yet gone from American life.
“That law passed in 1965 was the bedrock of improvement of life in America for people of color,” Robinson said. “This is a Louisiana case, but the result is not going to be limited to Louisiana. It’s going to set the stage for redistricting in the entire country.”
The 6-3 Callais decision struck down Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits state governments from racially gerrymandering their election maps. The lawsuit was brought by a group that described themselves as “non-African Americans,” who claimed that a recent map adopted in Louisiana racially discriminated against them by creating a second majority-Black district.
Robinson added that he sees another historic wipeout of Black power happening following the Supreme Court’s decision.
“History is now repeating itself,” he said.
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