Another Blight on American History

Floor Speech

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Ms. SEWELL. Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight with my colleagues in the Congressional Black Caucus to sound the alarm about the crisis unfolding before our eyes: the systemic dismantling of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Let me begin by thanking the gentlewoman from Virginia for leading this Special Order hour and my colleagues of the CBC for their steadfast leadership in this fight.

The Congressional Black Caucus has always stood on the front lines in defense of democracy. Tonight's Special Order hour comes at a time when that leadership is urgently needed.

For me this fight is personal. I grew up in Selma in the shadow of the civil rights movement. I represent the historic cities of Birmingham, Tuscaloosa, Marion, and the Black belt. Our communities carry the scars of Bloody Sunday, the Birmingham church bombings, firehoses, police dogs, and violent resistance to the simple idea that Black Americans deserve the full promise of citizenship.

People in my district bled for the right to vote. Some died for it. Now, six decades later, extremists are trying to drag this country backward. They are trying to erase our hard-fought progress and silence the voices of the very communities that marched, that sacrificed, and that organized to make American democracy real for everyone.

The Voting Rights Act is one of the greatest achievements in American history. It transformed this Nation. It broke the back of Jim Crow voter suppression, and it opened the doors of political participation for millions of Americans who had been locked out of democracy because of the color of their skin.

Over the last decade, we have watched that landmark law be chipped away, piece by piece by piece.

In 2013, the Supreme Court's disastrous decision in Shelby v. Holder gutted the heart of the Voting Rights Act by striking down the preclearance formula that protected communities with a long history of racial discrimination in voting.

What happened next? Exactly what voting rights advocates warned would happen. States across the South rushed to impose restrictive voting laws. They closed polling stations, purged voter rolls, and redrew maps designed to dilute Black political power.

Now, with the Court's recent decision in Callais, we are witnessing yet another dangerous step backward--another attack on the principle of fair representation and equal justice under the law.

Within hours of that decision, Republican State lawmakers rushed to eliminate majority Black districts across the South, including in my home State of Alabama, where voters will now be forced to live under a map that was previously struck down for intentional discrimination against Black voters.

You guessed it: The Supreme Court just ruled that the State of Alabama can go back to a map that intentionally discriminated against Black voters.

These decisions send a dangerous message: that protections won during the civil rights movement are somehow negotiable, that the rights secured on the Edmund Pettus Bridge can be weakened, narrowed, or ignored.

I reject that. The people I represent reject that. History rejects that. We cannot allow a handful of extremists, whether on the bench or in State legislatures, to rewrite history and reverse generations of progress.

The right to vote is precious, John Lewis told us, almost sacred. Without the vote, communities lose their voice. Without the vote, power becomes concentrated in the hands of a few. Without the vote, democracy itself is in danger.

That is why we must reform and reintroduce the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act to restore, reform, and modernize the protections of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Our bill would rebuild the preclearance system that was destroyed by Shelby. It would once again require jurisdictions with repeated voting rights violations to prove that changes to election laws are not discriminatory. It would be reformed to do away with partisan gerrymandering that was unleashed in the Callais case.

Let us be clear: The legislation bears the name of John Lewis because he understood better than anyone else that democracy is not self- executing. It requires courage. Democracy requires vigilance. It requires action.

Only Congress can rewrite the law so that partisan gerrymandering is no longer the law of the land. Only Congress can act to overturn what the Supreme Court did, and we must act now. If we fail to meet this moment, future generations will ask how we allowed the gains of the civil rights movement to be dismantled on our watch.

After all of this, I still believe in the promise of America. I believe in the legacy of those foot soldiers in Selma. I believe in the courage of ordinary people who refused to be pushed backward. I believe that if we stand together, organize together, and fight together, we can protect the sacred right to vote for generations to come.

I submit to you this: If your vote didn't matter, they wouldn't be working so hard to take it away.

We have to vote like our lives depend upon it because they do. We are not going back--not today, not tomorrow, not ever.

We don't want just some representation or no representation. We want fair representation. In the State of Alabama, African Americans are 28 percent of the vote. There are seven seats, and we deserve two. We want nothing less.

We will march. We will fight. We will organize. We will vote until victory is won.

Join me in Montgomery, Alabama, for the All Roads Lead to the South National Day of Action this Saturday, May 16, at 1 p.m. in Montgomery, Alabama, at the foot of the State capitol. We will stand up, stand tall, and we will fight back because, guess what. We are not--not-- going back.

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