Black Americans face a new fight for racial representation after justices’ Voting Rights Act ruling

The South Was Right: It’s Always Been About States’ Rights

The conservative justices of the U.S. Supreme Court took out their judicial knives last week and carved up the Voting Rights Act of 1965.   The Voting Rights Act was passed by the U.S. Congress and signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson.  At the time, the country considered it landmark legislation that prohibited racial discrimination in voting. After years of voting suppression in many Southern states after Reconstruction, African Ameri…

Local advocates voice concern over voting rights ruling; Leaders fear setbacks for minority voter representation

In late April, the Supreme Court ruled in a redistricting case from Louisiana that to accuse a district of purposely discriminating, it must prove intent to discriminate based on race. In the wake of this decision, both activists and legal…

Dr. Stuart C. Lord: Boulder cannot pretend the voting rights fight is happening elsewhere

This commentary is by Dr. Stuart C. Lord, executive director of the Boulder County Democratic Party, and a leadership scholar and advocate focused on civic trust and democratic participation. Many Boulder residents will read about last week’s Supreme Court voting rights ruling in Louisiana v. Callais and instinctively place it in a familiar mental file: another Southern racial controversy, another Deep South redistricting dispute, another remin…

Black Americans face a new fight for racial representation after justices’ Voting Rights Act ruling

Attorney Edward Blackmon Jr., 78, a civil rights attorney and a former state representative, left, and his son, State Sen. Bradford Blackmon, D-Canton, review a 2022 redistricting map in their law office in Canton, Miss., Friday, May 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis) By Leah Willingham, Jack Brook, Sophie Bates and Jeff Amy associated press JACKSON, Miss. — At 16, Edward Blackmon Jr. was arrested during a protest for voting rights in his Miss…

A New Fight For Racial Representation After Justices’ Voting Rights Act Ruling

Attorney Edward Blackmon Jr., 78, a civil rights attorney and a former state representative, right, demonstrates how he and other civil rights marchers were taught how to protect themselves if physically set upon by lawmen to his son State Sen. Bradford Blackmon, D-Canton, in Canton, Miss., Friday, May 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis) JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — At 16, Edward Blackmon Jr. was arrested during a protest for voting rights in his Miss…

Letter: Supreme Court is undoing hard-fought changes to voting rights

To the editor:In the summer of 1964, I joined approximately 700 college volunteers – along with clergy, lawyers, nurses, doctors, teachers – to respond to black Mississippians’ request to help in their fight for the right to vote.I was a New Yorker then. Now in R.I., I’ve found the names of Rhode Islanders who also worked with SNCC and CORE, volunteered for the Delta Ministry and lawyers’ groups in Mississippi that summer, and others who joined …