Melvin B. Miller
Editor & Publisher

Voting matters

During the campaign to renew sections of the Voting Rights Act, some African Americans viewed the turmoil as a tempest in a teapot, believing voter registration and turnout for elections to be more significant voting issues. Others, who misunderstood the scope of the law, were terrified that without its renewal the nation would revert to the denial of black suffrage.

What were actually at risk were several nonpermanent provisions of the law that would have expired on August 6, 2007 unless they were renewed. Under the Voting Rights Act, certain states and political subdivisions of the old Confederacy cannot make changes to their electoral procedures without the approval of the U.S. Attorney General or the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. In addition, the Justice Department can send observers to questionable political districts. Also, some jurisdictions must provide language assistance for Hispanic, Asian and Native American voters.

After winning a 25-year extension with votes of 390-33 in the House and 98-0 in the Senate, the matter is resolved. Vocal opposition by 33 Republican congressmen in the House was muted because this is an election year. President Bush even recanted his boycott of the NAACP by speaking at that organization’s 97th annual convention, where he pledged to sign the bill.

The renewed acts specifically apply only to Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia, but these laws set the standard for the whole nation. This approach to assuring the voting rights of minorities by enacting federal legislation has been necessary because the process of voting is determined by individual states.

The 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states that citizens may not be denied the right to vote because of race, color or prior condition of servitude. However, Southern states developed a number of requirements that effectively denied blacks the ballot. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 specifically outlawed the poll tax and the literacy test.

When quasi-legal impediments to black suffrage no longer worked, whites in the states covered by the Voting Rights Act were not reluctant to resort to violence. For black men in some counties, putting your name on the voting list was equivalent to signing your own death warrant. When the Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965, only 6.7 percent of blacks eligible to vote in Mississippi were registered, compared with 69.9 percent of the state’s whites.

In many counties in the South, blacks are still in the majority. Whites had no intention of peacefully surrendering political control. It took federal action to change the balance of power. It is important to remember that passage of the Voting Rights Act is not ancient history — it happened the same year that the Bay State Banner was founded.

Unfortunately, many African Americans do not understand that the struggle for political power continues. Those with wealth and political power will battle to maintain that status for their progeny. They understand that success in America is to some extent like a game of musical chairs, and they do not intend to be standing when the music stops.

History has shown what those lusting for power are willing to do to gain and maintain political clout. African Americans must be willing to assert equivalent determination in political warfare and at the polls if they expect to compete successfully.