There are countless stories about inequality in this country. But one thing that gives everyone an equal voice in saying and deciding what is important to them is their vote.
So important is a single vote, that sixty years ago—August 6th, 1965—Congress passed and President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act. It is considered one of the most important pieces of legislation ever enacted. But it did not happen without decades of pain, blood and sorrow, much of it intended to achieve those exact results.
But perhaps one single act of premeditated, even sadistic violence spurred passage of this long-delayed legislation. It was the killing of three young civil rights workers who had gone to Mississippi to encourage Black people to register and vote.
During this period, despite making up nearly half of the state’s population, only 7 percent of all Mississippi voters were Black. To right this wrong, something called ‘Freedom Summer’ was launched. It brought hundreds, even thousands, of mostly college students and others to the South to get Black people and others registered to vote. Among this group were 20-year-old Andrew Goodman, 21-year-old James Chaney—a Mississippi native—and 24-year-old Michael Schwerner. They came with the spirit of Freedom Summer but never returned home.
On June 21, 1964, the three, after examining and leaving the charred ruins of Mount Zion Methodist Church in Philadelphia, Mississippi, were stopped for a traffic violation and jailed. After several hours of detention, they paid their fine and were released.
On their way from the jail, the trio were waylaid by Klansmen. They were executed. A massive hunt by FBI agents ultimately found them—44 days later—buried in an earthen dam. Seven men were tried and convicted, not of murder, but on conspiracy charges. Only one person was ever charged with murder. He was convicted 41 years later, coincidentally, on the anniversary of the signing of the historic bill.
Today, the Voting Rights Act remains under attack. Since its passage, various sections of the VRA have been excised with much of the attack undertaken, both openly and stealthily, by long-time critic and current Chief Justice, John Roberts.
As a young clerk for Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist, himself an ardent opponent of civil rights legislation, the ever-eager twenty-something Roberts was Rehnquist’s point man writing op-eds in both New York Times and Washington Post opposing the VRA and penning briefing papers for Republican senators and congressmen restating the same principles. His writings regularly included liberal and incendiary references in opposition to the legislation with words like ‘quota,’ dog-whistle alerts to the position they should take.
When Rehnquist died in 2005, Roberts was chosen to replace him as Chief Justice. With new powers, including a conservative majority, Roberts now had the tools he had long dreamed of to continue carving the VRA into more digestible and appealing bites to a similarly leaning audience.
Because of opposition by civil rights groups to his stated positions on the VRA, he was asked during confirmation if he would “fairly apply the Voting Rights Act.” Roberts massaged answer was that he would examine the arguments “with an open mind,” and decide fairly.
But in 2013, in Shelby County v. Holder, Roberts voted to strike down Section 4, a key provision of the VRA which said states had to receive federal approval for their election law changes. “Things have changed dramatically” since 1965 and that the “blight of racial discrimination in voting” had largely gone away, he said explaining his vote. Essentially, since Black people now held elective office, certain VRA provisions were no longer needed.
Within days, Texas reinstated strict photo ID provisions, previously blocked for targeting Black and Latino voters. Two months later, North Carolina followed with laws cutting early voting by a week, ending same-day registration and imposing stricter ID rules. North Carolina’s new restrictions were later struck down for being almost “surgical” in their intent.
With the Department of Justice now being pared down and the beefiest parts of the super right’s Project 2025 now being implemented, it may only be a matter of time before the pattern of ‘case-by-case’ evisceration of the VRA continues.
As recent as May 2025, a federal court ruled that only the U.S. Attorney General—not private citizens or civil rights groups—can bring lawsuits aimed at protecting provisions of the VRA. It is now a very real possibility that if the case makes it to the Roberts court, the VRA may once again be slimmed down to a nearly unrecognized version of its once robust and long ago 1965 self.
Should the high court rule as it has in previous VRA cases, said Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, it will be a dark day for the country. “The Voting Rights Act,” he said, “is a critical civil rights law that protects all groups from discrimination at the ballot box.” With a move toward more gerrymandering, as is currently in the news as a result of the Texas legislature’s move to reshape a handful of predominately Black and Latino districts, “this law remains a crucial safeguard and way to enforce our constitutional freedom to vote.”
The two-term state attorney general says the high court’s efforts to undermine the VRA “are wrong and we must continue to fight for the right to vote.”
