Destroying the Voting Rights Act wasn’t just a legal ruling. It was a moral statement

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was once described as the crown jewel of the Civil Rights Movement. But it was not ornamental. It was functional. It was the answer to blood in the streets, to bodies on bridges, to names etched into memory because the nation refused to allow them to do the most basic of our civic duties, voting. 

On April 29, the Supreme Court did not simply reinterpret that jewel. It desecrated it. And in doing so, it handed something far more dangerous to state legislatures across this country: permission. Permission to redraw lines with surgical precision. Permission to dilute voices without saying so aloud. Permission to cloak racial disenfranchisement in the language of procedure. This is how erosion happens in America. Not always with a bang, but with a ruling from six unelected judges and a shrug. 

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