For some, the fight for voting rights decades ago ended in tragedy, with family members paying the ultimate price. Now, as the nation approaches its 250th anniversary, survivors are witnessing what they describe as a rollback of the very progress their loved ones died to achieve.
The Voting Rights Act of 1965, a landmark piece of legislation aimed at overcoming legal barriers at the state and local levels that prevented African Americans from exercising their right to vote, has been significantly weakened by a series of Supreme Court decisions. A ruling in April is seen by many as the latest blow, dismantling protections that had been in place for minority communities.
"My mother's blood is on that bill. We were always proud of that, and now it's gone," said Anthony Liuzzo, whose mother, Viola Liuzzo, was killed in 1965 while driving marchers between Selma and Montgomery, Alabama. Critics of the law, including Chief Justice John Roberts in a 2013 decision, have argued that times have changed and pre-approval requirements for voting law changes in historically discriminatory areas are no longer necessary. However, survivors contend that recent actions by Republican-led state legislatures, which have moved to eliminate majority-Black congressional districts following the April ruling, demonstrate that the struggle for equal voting access is far from over.
Lisa McNair, whose sister Denise was one of four young girls killed in the 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, expressed physical sickness over the recent Supreme Court decision and subsequent legislative actions. "I am constantly working to pray my way through it," McNair said. "But I just want to ask every white person I see, What more do you want? Why do you hate us so?"
Cassie Schwerner, granddaughter of civil rights activist Mickey Schwerner, who disappeared during Mississippi's Freedom Summer in 1964 along with Andrew Goodman and James Chaney, noted that her family felt their relatives' case garnered international attention largely because two of the three victims were white. "Had all three of those young men been Black, they would have ended up absent from our history and our narrative," she stated. Her family has closely followed voting rights, and the court's April decision brought "rage and a good deal of sadness—not for me and my family, but for this country."
Tamara Orange, daughter of civil rights activist James Orange, found a grim relief in the Supreme Court's decision, stating she was relieved her father and others who died fighting for voting rights were not alive to witness it. "It's as though the sacrifices that were made were done in vain," she said. Her father, a key organizer for voting rights protests, had warned even after the Voting Rights Act passed, "be careful or we're going to lose it."
Viola Liuzzo's son, Anthony, recounted the midnight call informing his father of his mother's death. He found comfort for years in the fact that the voting rights she died for had become a reality. However, he now feels anger and distress over the Supreme Court's ruling and the subsequent legislative actions. Despite this, he remains proud of his mother's courage.
Dennis Dahmer Sr.'s father, Vernon Dahmer Sr., a civil rights leader and NAACP president, was killed in 1966 when Klansmen firebombed his home near Hattiesburg, Mississippi, shortly after he had been paying poll taxes for Black residents seeking to register to vote. His tombstone inscription reads, "If you don't vote, you don't count." Dennis Dahmer described the current dismantling of the Voting Rights Act as turning it into a relic. "We're living in a time when America has a lot of the same characteristics of the 1960s that I grew up in," he said. "People say, are we going back? Hell, we're already there."