The Right Wants to Erase Minority Representation. We’ll Register Millions to Stop Them.

Their insult will arouse us—and put Republican incumbents’ own seats at risk.

By Yusef D. Jackson, The Nation

When the right-wing justices of the Supreme Court, scorning judicial precedent and legislative mandate, voted to gut the Voting Rights Act—the capstone legislation of the civil rights movement—the effect was predictable and predicted. Republicans in Tennessee rushed to eliminate the sole congressional district represented by an African American. Louisiana, Alabama, and South Carolina are scrambling to join them. The disgraceful decision kicked off what will be a concerted effort to reduce African American representation in the nation’s legislative bodies—federal, state, and local.

The gang of six on the Supreme Court served as willing collaborators in what is now a systematic right-wing offensive to roll back the progress wrought not only by the civil rights movement but also all of the civilizing movements of our time—the women’s movement, the LGBT movement, and more. This assault, spearheaded by an authoritarian president, is waged on many fronts. In the courts, the Department of Justice has turned from opening doors to slamming them shut to protect the privilege of white men. On the streets, masked thugs terrorize people of color, particularly communities of Hispanics, Haitians, Somalis, and other immigrants. The full force of the administration is mobilized to eradicate programs promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion in government, corporations, and universities. Public museums, national parks, libraries, and monuments are censored to erase the oppression suffered and the contributions made by African Americans and other people of color.

We’ve suffered this form of reaction before. After the Civil War, after passing the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments outlawing slavery and guaranteeing equal protection under the law, the Congress launched the reconstruction of the Confederate states. With former slaves gaining the right to vote, multiracial coalitions helped write some of the most enlightened state Constitutions in our history, guaranteeing universal public education, democratic elections, and more.

The reaction was fierce and unrelenting. The Ku Klux Klan terrorized former slaves seeking to vote. Disinformation campaigns spread lies about Black leaders. Upon regaining control, plantation legislators passed “black codes,” effectively using debt bondage to shackle the newly freed slaves. The Supreme Court provided its imprimatur in Plessy v. Ferguson, which, to the lasting shame of the court, ratified segregation, Jim Crow, the American version of apartheid. It took almost another century before the civil rights movement brought that injustice to an end.