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The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is a landmark piece of federal legislation in the United States that prohibits racial discrimination in voting. It was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson during the height of the civil rights movement on August 6, 1965, and Congress later amended the Act five times to expand its protections. Designed to enforce the voting rights protected by the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, the Act sought to secure the right to vote for racial minorities throughout the country, especially in the South. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, the Act is considered to be the most effective piece of federal civil rights legislation ever enacted in the country. The National Archives and Records Administration stated: "The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was the most significant statutory change in the relationship between the federal and state governments in the area of voting since the Reconstruction period following the Civil War".
Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896), was a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision ruling that racial segregation laws did not violate the U.S. Constitution as long as the facilities for each race were equal in quality, a doctrine that came to be known as "separate but equal". The decision legitimized the many state laws re-establishing racial segregation that had been passed in the American South after the end of the Reconstruction era in 1877. Such legally enforced segregation in the south lasted into the 1960s.
The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. is an American civil rights organization and law firm based in New York City.
Homer Adolph Plessy was an American shoemaker and activist, who was the plaintiff in the United States Supreme Court decision Plessy v. Ferguson. He staged an act of civil disobedience to challenge one of Louisiana's racial segregation laws and bring a test case to force the U.S. Supreme Court to rule on the constitutionality of segregation laws. The Court decided against Plessy. The resulting "separate but equal" legal doctrine determined that state-mandated segregation did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution as long as the facilities provided for both black and white people were putatively "equal". The legal precedent set by Plessy v. Ferguson lasted into the mid-20th century, until a series of landmark Supreme Court decisions concerning segregation, beginning with Brown v. Board of Education in 1954.
Voter caging involves challenging the registration status of voters and calling into question the legality of allowing them to vote. Usually it involves sending mail directly to registered voters and compiling a list from mail returned undelivered. Undeliverable mail is seen as proof that the person no longer resides at the address on their voter registration. The resultant list is then used by election officials to purge names from the voter registration rolls or to challenge voters' eligibility to vote on the grounds that the voters no longer reside at their registered addresses.
Giles v. Harris, 189 U.S. 475 (1903), was an early 20th-century United States Supreme Court case in which the Court upheld a state constitution's requirements for voter registration and qualifications. Although the plaintiff accused the state of discriminating in practice against black citizens, the Court found that the requirements applied to all citizens and refused to review the results "in practice," which it considered overseeing the state's process. As there was no stated intent in law to disenfranchise blacks, the Court upheld the state law.
FairVote is a 501(c)(3) organization and lobbying group in the United States.
Williams v. Mississippi, 170 U.S. 213 (1898), is a United States Supreme Court case that reviewed provisions of the 1890 Mississippi constitution and its statutes that set requirements for voter registration, including poll tax, literacy tests, the grandfather clause, and the requirement that only registered voters could serve on juries. The plaintiff, Henry Williams, claimed that Mississippi's voting laws were upheld with the intent to disenfranchise African Americans, thus violating the Fourteenth Amendment. The U.S. Supreme Court did not find discrimination in the state's laws because, even though the laws made discrimination possible, the laws themselves did not discriminate against African Americans. The court found that any discrimination toward African Americans was performed by the administrative officers enforcing the law and that there was no judicial remedy for this kind of discrimination.
Same-sex marriage has been legal in Hawaii since December 2, 2013. The Hawaii State Legislature held a special session beginning on October 28, 2013, and passed the Hawaii Marriage Equality Act legalizing same-sex marriage. Governor Neil Abercrombie signed the legislation on November 13, and same-sex couples began marrying on December 2. Hawaii also allows both same-sex and opposite-sex couples to formalize their relationships legally in the form of civil unions and reciprocal beneficiary relationships. Civil unions provide the same rights, benefits, and obligations of marriage at the state level, while reciprocal beneficiary relationships provide a more limited set of rights.
The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws introduced in the Southern United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries that enforced racial segregation, "Jim Crow" being a pejorative term for an African American. Such laws remained in force until 1965. Formal and informal segregation policies were present in other areas of the United States as well, even as several states outside the South had banned discrimination in public accommodations and voting. Southern laws were enacted by white-dominated state legislatures (Redeemers) to disenfranchise and remove political and economic gains made by African Americans during the Reconstruction era. Such continuing racial segregation was also supported by the successful Lily-white movement.
Same-sex marriage has been legally recognized in West Virginia since October 9, 2014. On July 28, 2014, a ruling by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Bostic v. Schaefer found Virginia's ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional. On October 6, 2014, the U.S. Supreme Court denied certiorari in Bostic, allowing the ruling to take effect. As a result, on October 9, 2014, Governor Earl Ray Tomblin announced he was ordering state agencies to act in compliance with the controlling precedent in the Virginia case. Even though West Virginia's ban had not been explicitly declared unconstitutional, the Fourth Circuit precedent made it certain the state's statutory ban would be overturned. The state started issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples that same day. The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia officially ruled the state's same-sex marriage ban unconstitutional on November 7, 2014.
The California Voting Rights Act of 2001 (CVRA) is a state law in the state of California. It makes it easier for minority groups in California to prove that their votes are being diluted in "at-large" elections by expanding on the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965. In Thornburg v. Gingles (1986), the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that there are certain conditions that must be met in order to prove that minorities are being disenfranchised: that the affected minority group is sufficiently large to elect a representative of its choice, that the minority group is politically cohesive, and that white majority voters vote sufficiently as a bloc to usually defeat the minority group's preferred candidates; the CVRA eliminated one of these requirements. Unlike the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which is a federal law, the CVRA does not require plaintiffs to demonstrate a specific geographic district where a minority is concentrated enough to establish a majority. Certain cities that have never had minority representation or have a history of minority candidate suppression can be liable for triple damages and be forced to make changes within 90 days. That makes it easier for minority voters to sue local governments and eliminate at-large elections. The Act was eventually signed into law on 9 July 2002.
Thornburg v. Gingles, 478 U.S. 30 (1986), was a United States Supreme Court case in which a unanimous Court found that "the legacy of official discrimination ... acted in concert with the multimember districting scheme to impair the ability of "cohesive groups of black voters to participate equally in the political process and to elect candidates of their choice." The ruling resulted in the invalidation of districts in the North Carolina General Assembly and led to more single-member districts in state legislatures.
Shelby County v. Holder, 570 U.S. 529 (2013), was a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States regarding the constitutionality of two provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965: Section 5, which requires certain states and local governments to obtain federal preclearance before implementing any changes to their voting laws or practices; and subsection (b) of Section 4, which contains the coverage formula that determines which jurisdictions are subject to preclearance based on their histories of racial discrimination in voting.
Bernette Joshua Johnson is an American lawyer from New Orleans, who served as the chief justice of the Louisiana Supreme Court from 2013 to 2020.
Edward Jay Blum is an American conservative litigant who opposes diversity programs such as affirmative action based on race and ethnicity.
Benisek v. Lamone, 585 U.S. ____ (2018), and Lamone v. Benisek, 588 U.S. ____ (2019), were a pair of decisions by the Supreme Court of the United States in a case dealing with the topic of partisan gerrymandering arising from the 2011 Democratic party-favored redistricting of Maryland. At the center of the cases was Maryland's 6th district which historically favored Republicans and which was redrawn in 2011 to shift the political majority to become Democratic via vote dilution. Affected voters filed suit, stating that the redistricting violated their right of representation under Article One, Section Two of the U.S. Constitution and freedom of association of the First Amendment.
Abbott v. Perez, 585 U.S. ___ (2018), was a United States Supreme Court case dealing with the redistricting of the state of Texas following the 2010 census.
Allen v. Milligan, 599 U. S. 1 (2023), is a United States Supreme Court case related to redistricting under the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA). The appellees and respondants argued that Alabama's congressional districts discriminated against African-American voters. The Court ruled 5–4 that Alabama’s districts likely violated the VRA, maintained an injunction that required Alabama to create an additional majority-minority district.
The People's Institute for Survival and Beyond (PISAB) is a non-profit organization that provides education and training to individuals, communities and organizations on issues related to systemic racism and social and human justice. The organization was founded in 1980 by civil and human rights activists and scholars Ronald Chisom and James Norman Dunn. The organization is based in New Orleans, Louisiana with several regional organizing hubs across the country. More than 2 million people, across the United States and internationally, completed PISAB's Undoing Racism and Community Organizing workshop.
References
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- ↑ "Our History – PISAB" . Retrieved March 30, 2023.
- 1 2 Lovchik, John (October 11, 2018). Racism: Reality Built on a Myth. Wipf and Stock Publishers. ISBN 978-1-5326-4822-9.
- 1 2 Fong, Rowena; Dettlaff, Alan J.; James, Joyce; Rodriguez, Carolyne (November 25, 2014). Addressing Racial Disproportionality and Disparities in Human Services: Multisystemic Approaches. Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-53707-0.
- 1 2 "The Petra Foundation | Ron Chisom". petrafoundation.org. Retrieved March 30, 2023.
- 1 2 Tabachnik, Sam (December 13, 2013). "What's 'white privilege' all about? The People's Institute offers tough insights". The Lens. Retrieved March 30, 2023.
- ↑ "Ron Chisom | Ashoka | Everyone a Changemaker". www.ashoka.org. Retrieved March 30, 2023.
- ↑ Arena, John (2012). Driven from New Orleans: How Nonprofits Betray Public Housing and Promote Privatization. U of Minnesota Press. ISBN 978-0-8166-7747-4.
- ↑ "Workshop aims to undo racism".
- ↑ Wesley, Ruth Bailey (1991). "The Louisiana Judiciary and the Voting Rights Act: Casting a Vote of Import, Chison v. Roemer". Southern University Law Review. 18: 255.
- ↑ "Ronald Chisom, et al., Plaintiffs-appellants, United States of America, Plaintiff-intervenor-appellant, v. Charles E. "buddy" Roemer, Iii, in His Capacity As Governor of the State of Louisiana, et al., Defendants-appellees, 917 F.2d 187 (5th Cir. 1990)". Justia Law. Retrieved March 30, 2023.
- ↑ "Arguments on deal that put Black justice on Louisiana court". AP NEWS. March 6, 2023. Retrieved March 30, 2023.
- ↑ Stole, Bryn (September 22, 2019). "District lines for Louisiana's Supreme Court justices are under fire; here's why". NOLA.com. Retrieved March 30, 2023.
- ↑ Muller, Wesley (February 28, 2023). "5th Circuit will hear decades-long case over Black seat on La. Supreme Court". Louisiana Illuminator. Retrieved March 29, 2023.
- ↑ Jones, Daryl (January 1, 1991). "Recent Developments: Chisom v. Roemer: Judicial Elections Covered within Meaning of "Representatives" in Voters' Rights Act". University of Baltimore Law Forum. 22 (2).
- ↑ "Ronald CHISOM, et al., Petitioners, v. Charles E. ROEMER, Governor of Louisiana, et al. UNITED STATES, Petitioner, v. Charles E. ROEMER, Governor of Louisiana, et al". LII / Legal Information Institute. Retrieved March 29, 2023.
- ↑ Franckiewicz, Victor J. Jr (1992–1993). "Chisom v. Roemer - The Elected Judiciary Is Subject to Vote Dilution Claims under the Voting Rights Act". Loyola Law Review. 38: 211.
- ↑ "United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit" (PDF). September 17, 2021.
- ↑ "LDF & Other Advocates Oppose Louisiana AG's Motion to Dissolve Historic Decree Ensuring Black Electoral Representation on Louisiana Supreme Court". Legal Defense Fund. Retrieved March 30, 2023.
- ↑ "Black Voters At Risk If La. Decree Ends, 5th Circ. Told – Law360". www.law360.com. Retrieved March 30, 2023.
- ↑ "HSA2013". Seattle Human Services Coalition. Retrieved March 17, 2023.
- ↑ "Undoing Racism Workshop". Welcome to Mary Pender Greene, LCSW-R, CGP President and CEO of MPG Consulting. Retrieved March 30, 2023.
- 1 2 Bean, Jason (November 21, 2016). "Undoing Racism Speakers Series Part 4". Child Advocates. Retrieved March 30, 2023.
- ↑ "2019 Thomas Merton Award". thomasmertoncenter. Retrieved April 8, 2023.
- ↑ Chisom, Ronald (1997). Undoing Racism: A Philosophy of International Social Change. People's Institute Press. ISBN 978-0-9653305-1-0.
- ↑ Washington, Michael; Chisom, Ronald (August 1996). Undoing Racism: An International Philosophy of Social Change by the People's Institute for Survival and Beyond. Michael Washington. ISBN 978-0-9653305-0-3.