Fifty-Seven Years After its Enactment, the Voting Rights Act is in Peril

This week marks 57 years since the signing of the Voting Rights Act (VRA), landmark legislation that ensured the right to vote was protected for all Americans.

In the decades following the Civil War, states in the South enacted discriminatory measures, such as poll taxes and literary tests, in order to stop Black Americans from voting. Not to be deterred, voting rights activists protested and mobilized, but were met with brutal violence and intimidation. These efforts culminated in 1965, as voting rights activists seeking to march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama were...