The Voting Rights Act Turns 61. Here’s How We Keep It Alive.
Courts have chipped away at it. Congress can restore it. Here’s your move today: Defend The Vote.
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Sixty one years ago today, Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law. Five months earlier, John Lewis walked across the Edmund Pettus Bridge and took a beating for the ballot you hold now.
You stand on his shoulders. You stand on the shoulders of every marcher who bled in Selma, every organizer who registered voters under threat, every mother who stood in line for hours because someone told her she couldn’t.
Courts gutted their work. Twice. First in 2013, when Shelby County v. Holder struck down the VRA’s preclearance formula and freed states with histories of discrimination to change voting rules without federal oversight. Then again this April, when the Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling in Louisiana v. Callais gutted Section 2, making it far harder for voters of color to challenge maps built to dilute their power. Politicians let the fix rot in committee for thirteen years.
We Are Not Starting Over. We Are Finishing the Job.
Giants built this law with marches, blood, and unbroken will. We defend it with clicks, calls, and unbroken will. Same fight. New tools.
Restore what they ripped away. Defend what still stands. Enshrine a stronger John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act so no court and no legislature ever guts it again.
#DefendTheVote Starts With You
Mourning will not reopen a closing door. Noise might.
Grab our toolkit and post it now. Every graphic, every caption, cleared with the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and Reverend Sharpton’s National Action Network, built so your share carries real weight, not just noise.
Post the registration check. Post the RSVP for the March on Washington. Post the history. Post your reason.
They Fought for a Door. Keep It Open.
Selma opened a door. Shelby narrowed it. Callais tried to slam it shut this April.
You hold the door now.
One post moves a feed. One share moves a friend. One call moves a Senator. Multiply that by thousands of us posting today and we move the country.
Authoritarians count on your silence. Give them your defiance instead.
Do This Today
Open the toolkit. Pick a graphic. Post it with #DefendTheVote before you close this app.
Check your registration and tell three people to check theirs.
Click here or on the photo below to easily access our digital toolkit!
Powerful reminder that the Voting Rights Act wasn’t the end of the fight for democracy. It was the beginning. We honor it by protecting it.