A moral moment: Time for courage

The movie Selma, which garnered three NAACP Image Awards, breathes life into a struggle seemingly forgotten: the decades-long battle for bias-free access to the ballot box. In the wake of the 50^th year anniversary of the Voting Rights Act and the half-century celebration of the Selma to Montgomery march next month, we cannot afford to be mere commemorators or idle spectators of history.  At this precise historical moment, we must draw inspiration from the example set by the Selma marchers of yesteryear to restore a badly broken Voting Rights Act today.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965, until only recently, was widely regarded as the most effective civil rights statute.  As the movie illustrates, this law was passed only after the blood-soaked sacrifice of courageous men and women of all races, faiths and ages who mobilized and pressured President Lyndon B. Johnson to protect the franchise. For generations the law protected Americans from a host of unconstitutional tactics that have prevented and impeded voting.

{mosads}But, this protection was neither guaranteed nor permanent.

Since the Supreme Court’s invalidation of a crucial section of this legislation in 2013 in its Shelby v. Holder decision, African Americans and other vulnerable communities including students, the elderly and immigrants are facing more barriers to their voices being heard. From Georgia to Wisconsin, voter suppression efforts steadily rise. During the 2014 midterm elections, three counties in Georgia saw upwards of 40,000 voter registrations go missing in large part due to an outdated system while in other counties elderly and/or disabled voters were forced to endure long bus drives to the polls due to the closure of their neighborhood precincts.

And even after countless studies substantiate that voter fraud is extremely rare, with only a handful of fraudulent ballots casts upon millions upon millions of votes cast, state voter identification laws soared.  Today, not only do 30 states require votersto present often inconsistent and unnecessary forms of identification to vote in federal, state and local elections, but an ID to shoot a gun is deemed valid while an ID that allows one to study at a university, is not.

We have experienced voter suppression before. And we cannot, we will not, return to the darkest hours of our nation’s past–with rural, older, college-enrolled, disabled, black and brown voters facing bias at the ballot box today.

Fifty years ago, when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., along with his brave band of civil rights disciples, demanded that Congress and President Johnson bestow upon African Americans their unfettered and constitutional right to vote, it was their top demand. At that time, African Americans faced a myriad of grave social and economic challenges, including decades of state sanctioned police brutality. But, equal representation at the polls meant better representation in schools, workplaces, courts even the criminal justice system. For even President Abraham Lincoln said, “The ballot is stronger than the bullet.”

In the film Selma, Dr. King explained to President Johnson that the primary means of protecting African Americans from racially motivated violence was to protect the right to vote—and thereby insure fair grand juries and an accountable criminal justice system. Today, in the face of extreme police brutality in Ferguson and across the country and decision makers who often do not represent our communities, it is critical that the right to vote be vigorously protected and exercised.  Challenges from racial profiling to the school to prison pipeline depend on holding public officials from Senators to school board members accountable through a voting booth unrestricted by bias.

And just as Dr. King charged President Johnson to muster the moral and political will to act, we look to President Obama, who called voting a “sacred right,” to lead the charge. We call on him to urge Congress to end the disenfranchisement of our most vulnerable voters by restoring the Voting Rights Act and ensuring every citizen can exercise their constitutional right to vote.

As we near the 50^th anniversary of the Selma to Montgomery March, now is our moment to emulate the constitutional and moral values of an earlier generation before us who left blood, sweat and tears on the ballot box.  We must go beyond celebrating Selma’s past and demonstrate the political courage of Selma in the present by amending the Voting Rights Act this year. Now is our moral moment to ascend ever higher along that arc, so eloquently described by Dr. King, that bends towards justice— and a just America.

Brooks is the president & CEO of the NAACP.