As the nation is meditating on the Voting Rights Act, and what the status of racial discrimination is in the United States it’s important to note that the original efforts to register blacks in the Deep South had a body count. People died to empower others. Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman, and James Chaney are only the most famous- the fights before, during, and after racial integration were violent and their effects long-lasting.
Regardless of whether the VRA is needed in the present, it should be considered in context with the past.
(courtesy of the civil rights era digitizing effort of the University of Southern Mississippi)
Unspoken Politics 