January 21, 2022
Listen to the Commotion--the Threat is REAL
Voting Rights: A 'Clear and Present Danger' 
 Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s family and others march for Senate action on the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, Washington D.C., Monday, January 17, 2022
Voting Rights—what is all the commotion about? For African Americans it means everything, and for our nation it means the very foundation of our republic. This past Monday, January 17, groups led by the family of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. marched in support of the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, while many others wrote and spoke up in support of the act’s passage. After months of the legislation sitting in the U.S. Senate, it was blocked.  
Left to right: Future U.S. Congressman John Lewis crossing the Edmund Pettus bridge during the March to Selma for voting rights, Selma, Alabama, Sunday, March 7, 1965; Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. casting his vote, Atlanta, Georgia, 1964; and Martin Luther King, III speaking at the ‘March on for Washington and Voting Rights,’ January 17, 2022
This came after long-fought battles for voting rights that neither began nor ended with the Voting Rights Act of 1965, fifty-seven years ago. Since the historic passage of the act, amendments and renewals have been made in 1970, 1975, 1982, 1992, and 2006 as voting discrimination has continued to plague our nation. Civic leader and city government appointee John W. Mack (1937 - 2018) warned in his 2013 interview: “I hope… we don't have to refight the same old battles over and over again… the recent Supreme Court decision [Shelby County v. Holder, 2013] … gutting important parts or sections of the Voting Rights Act.”[1] In honor of his father’s legacy, Martin Luther King, III implored: “We are calling on them… to restore the very voting rights protections my father and countless other civil rights leaders bled to secure… [We] will not accept empty promises in pursuit of my father’s dream for a more equal and just America.”[2]
Left: Martin (left) and his brother Alfred (right) as children, undated
Right: Reverend Martin Luther King, Sr. preaching, Atlanta, Georgia undated
It was the stately older sister of Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., Christine King Farris, who in her interview recalled how voter registration was something that their father, “Daddy King,” emphasized to his parishioners: “I remember Dad [Martin Luther King, Sr.] organizing members in the church and taking them down to the courthouse to register to vote. And he was very active… in the community [Atlanta, Georgia] in that way. And… my brothers [Martin and Alfred King] … saw this.”[3]
Left: Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy, undated
Right (left to right): Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., John Lewis, Rabbi Joachim Prinz, Eugene Carson Blake, A. Phillip Randolph, President John F. Kennedy, Vice President Lyndon Johnson, and Walter Reuther, White House, August 1963
This focus on voting rights and registration was the hallmark of the modern-day civil rights movement as outlined by late U.S. Congressman John Lewis (1940 - 2020): “It was during the summer of the Freedom Rides… And Robert Kennedy started negotiating and meeting with people… suggesting that there should be a cooling off period. And that it would be more meaningful if people would turn their attention to voter registration. And there was this great debate within SNCC [Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee], within the [Civil Rights] Movement about whether we should go and get involved in voter registration or whether we should continue a campaign of nonviolent direct action… The decision was… we must do both… And it was the [U.S. President John F.] Kennedy administration convincing several… New York-based foundations to set up something called the Voter Education Project… where people would be able to give and donate tax deductible dollars and these dollars would be used for non-partisan… efforts to gain the right to vote. And it was hard—it was difficult. It was supposed to be steady and researched, and people discovered early… it was gonna be almost impossible for black folks in the eleven states of the old Confederacy from Virginia to Texas to get registered. That effort laid the foundation—created the climate… for the movement for the right to vote, that led to the passage of the Voters Rights Act [of 1965].”[4]
Left: Washington D.C. Delegate to the House of Representatives Walter Fauntroy, c. 1970s
Right: Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. reading about the Watts Riots in the Birmingham Post Herald, 1965
Minister and civil rights leader Reverend Walter Fauntroy further explained: “Because of the Voting Rights Act [of 1965] … the '70s [1970s] ushered in a… decade—where we began to recover by meaningful participation in the political area. In 1965, there were only six black mayors in the country. But after two million new… black voters, we had 60 black mayors. We had only 600 black elected officials in 1965. By 1972, when we were doing the Congressional Black Caucus, we had over 2000 black elected officials. And so our frustration was beginning to express itself in meaningful political action and electoral politics augmented by a battery of programs.”[5] Theologian James H. Cone (1938 – 2018) added: “When the voting rights bill [Voting Rights Act of 1965] was signed… President [Lyndon B.] Johnson and… Martin [Luther] King [Jr.] … thought that this was really the beginning of seeing full equality in this society. But what's happened six days later [the Watts Riots] and it shocked King… he was so shocked and went to Watts [Los Angeles, California] … And there King realized that the achievements that he had made in the South with the civil rights bill [Civil Rights Act of 1964] and the Voting Rights Act [of 1965], were achievements that blacks in the North or in the West and in New York and California, they already had 'em… That's when King realized that the problem with racism was much deeper.”[6]
Left: Julia Wilder (left) and Maggie Bozeman (right), c. 1983
Right: President Ronald Reagan signing extensions to the Voting Rights Act of 1965, 1982
Reverend Dr. Joseph Lowery (1921 - 2020), co-founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, shared: “There were two black women in Alabama who were indicted for voter fraud, Maggie Bozeman and Julia Wilder… One was a schoolteacher, one was a domestic worker. Their only crime was registering black voters and teaching them how to [submit] absentee ballots… In the meantime, the Voting Rights Act [of 1965] … Section 5, particularly, [was] expiring in '82 [1982]. And so we tied the two together because what Maggie and Julia were doing was securing voting rights.”[7] ACLU Washington Legislative Office Director Laura Murphy reflected on the continued efforts to secure voting rights in the 1980s when they were being attacked under the Reagan Administration: “[President Ronald] Reagan got elected… And [Rev.] Jerry Falwell and everybody else came in, and the ACLU [American Civil Liberties Union] was their favorite target. And one of the issues that I had to work on was the extension of the Voting Rights Act [of 1965] … the [U.S.] Senate had turned Republican. And [U.S. Senator Robert] Bob Dole was the majority leader. And that was the first time it happened in years. And so there was a whole new regime of power… So… we formed a coalition with the [NAACP] Legal Defense Fund and the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund, and all these other groups… And we did it… what it showed me was that liberal Democrats are not always liberal. They don't always have the courage of their convictions, and you can work with Republicans to get certain things done… we could not have gotten the extension passed without Bob Dole's help… And I've got… [U.S. President] George [H.W.] Bush, the elder’s, signature [on the 1992 extension of Section 203(c) of the Voting Rights Act of 1965].”[8]
Left: President George W. Bush signing extensions to the Voting Rights Act of 1965, 2006
Right: Reverend Jesse Jackson at a voting rights rally, 2021
The extension of our nation’s voting rights laws was under debate again in 2006— the last time the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was extended or amended—under another Republican president, George W. Bush. As noted by Joseph Henry Beasley, former Southern Regional Director of the National Rainbow/PUSH Coalition: “Republicans… have passed some very egregious laws here in the last General Assembly [in Georgia] … we have seventeen different forms of I.D. that we could use to vote, and they reduced it down to five, and… for example, and two of them is a passport… and a military I.D. And only a few people like myself… get those credentials… so we're fighting tooth and nail. Reverend [Jesse L.] Jackson has called August 6th as the date that we're going to really close down Atlanta… Section Two and Section Five is going to expire of the Voting Rights Act [of 1965]. When [President] George [W.] Bush… was approached by the [Congressional] Black Caucus, and Jesse Jackson, Jr. really had put the question to him. ‘Well, Mr. President, what are you going to do about the Voting Rights Act?’ And he's… just said, ‘I don't even know anything about it.’ And quite frankly he didn't know… But he said, ‘When it gets to my desk, I'll look at it, and… I'll make a decision at that time.’”[9]
Left: Demonstrator holding a sign saying, “We Want To Vote,” c. 1960s
Right: Demonstrator holding a sign saying, “We Must Protect Our Vote,” Georgia, 2021
Well, here we are now with a myriad of familiar problems, and an increasingly divided nation that shows no signs of coming together to do the right thing. We must pay attention to these cautionary words spoken by the legendary Reverend Dr. Otis Moss, Jr. in 2005: “The greatest threat that we face in the twenty-first century is the possibility of… the enforcement of the Voting Rights Act [of 1965] being diluted to the extent that the right to vote can again be so abridged that it will become acceptable once more to deny people their citizenship by way of the right to vote… that is a clear and present danger.”[10]
[1] John W. Mack (The HistoryMakers A2007.139), interviewed by Larry Crowe, November 18, 2013, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 2, tape 9, story 9, John W. Mack describes his hopes and concerns for the African American community.
[2] Stracqualursi, “Martin Luther King Jr.'s family calls for 'no celebration' of MLK Day without action on voting rights legislation,” CNN.
[3] Christine King Farris (The HistoryMakers A2010.074), interviewed by Julieanna L. Richardson, July 11, 2010, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 2, story 1, Christine King Farris discusses family dinners and her father, Dr. Martin Luther King, Sr., as an activist.
[4] The Honorable John Lewis (The HistoryMakers A2001.039), interviewed by Julieanna L. Richardson, April 25, 2001, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 4, story 6, John Lewis discusses the government's support for the Civil Rights Movement.
[5] The Honorable Reverend Walter Fauntroy (The HistoryMakers A2003.016), interviewed by Julieanna L. Richardson, January 23, 2003, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 5, story 5, Walter Fauntroy talks about the end of the Poor People's Campaign and increased voter engagement after the Voting Rights Act.
[6] James H. Cone (The HistoryMakers A2006.004), interviewed by Shawn Wilson, May 10, 2006, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 2, tape 5, story 4, James H. Cone explains what precipitated the Watts riots of 1965.
[7] Reverend Dr. Joseph Lowery (The HistoryMakers A2003.185), interviewed by Larry Crowe, August 13, 2003, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 4, story 2, Joseph Lowery discusses past and present issues regarding voters' rights.
[8] Laura Murphy (The HistoryMakers A2001.051), interviewed by Julieanna L. Richardson, January 18, 2001, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 4, story 1, Laura Murphy describes her work in the ACLU on extending the Voting Rights Act.
[9] Joseph Henry Beasley (The HistoryMakers A2005.144), interviewed by Larry Crowe, June 22, 2005, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 5, story 3, Joseph Henry Beasley describes his work to protect African American voting rights in Georgia.
[10] Reverend Dr. Otis Moss, Jr. (The HistoryMakers A2005.070), interviewed by Regennia Williams, March 18, 2005, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 3, story 4, Otis Moss explains the importance of voting rights to the Civil Rights Movement.