Past is Prologue.
Not to take away from collective learning and celebration of Black History month, but this is not a celebratory essay because I'm Black every month, and I think of our history every day.
For this essay, I'm going to attempt to critique the current debate around redistricting and voting rights, but I'm reminded of a quote by the Honorable El-Malik Shabazz, Malcolm X,
"We put them first, and they put us last."
It was prescient then as it is now, as we think about who is willing to lay it all on the line to protect freedom, justice, and equality. Still, one of the most important fights of today is that of suffrage.
Last week, we learned that the North Carolina Supreme Court ruled that the proposed redistricting maps drawn by the state's Republicans were unconstitutional. For me, this is not at all surprising because I grew up in a small town outside of Wilmington, North Carolina, and I know a little about the state's history, particularly that of Wilmington.
Interestingly, in December, I read a New York Times article focused on explaining the impact of redistricting - or what the journalist describes as racial gerrymandering - on electoral districts, writ large.
The article notes how the proposed maps would negatively impact Black elected officials in the South. Its opening paragraph reminded me of the need to understand the full context of history and its role in our current political discourse about voting, voting rights, and who has access to the ballot.
The journalists rightly call our attention to the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the layer of protection undermined by the US Supreme Court decision in the Shelby case in 2013.
However, the article fails to outline the historical pattern and the systematic effort in the South to fundamentally stunt the protection and benefits for African Americans in the Reconstruction Amendments, particularly the 15th Amendment, that followed the Civil War.
If we're honest, the contentious debate about voting rights is nothing new in this country, but what's jarring is that we're still fighting the same old battles with new names and tactics but with the same goal. In essence, these current changes to voting rights and the debate around redistricting are akin to taking a birdbath splashing some water, but if you don't lather any soap, you're just covering up old funk to make it look and smell new.
A Quick Flashback
I'm currently rereading Black Reconstruction in America 1860-1880 by W.E.B. Du Bois in a discussion group that I curate. The last few chapters center on the suffrage debate for Black people in the run-up to the Reconstruction Amendments. Still, even after the passage of the Reconstruction Amendments, the struggle for access to the ballot remained central to the political protection of Black lives in America, particularly those in the South.
In Chapter 8, there is a quote by Frederick Douglass worth calling out where in February 1866, while in a meeting with other Negroes advocating for the suffrage" Douglass says to President Andrew Johnson:
"Your noble and humane predecessor placed in our hands the sword to assist in saving the nation, and we do hope that you, his able successor, will favorably regard the placing in our hands the ballot with which to save ourselves." (Page 297, Black Reconstruction)
Douglass goes on to say to Johnson:
“You enfranchise your enemies and disfranchise your friends…” (page 298, Black Reconstruction)
Whether we're talking about redistricting or access to the ballot, we're fundamentally talking about the same thing – the protection and freedom of the oppressed. The ballot is the teacher of all teachers, no matter our status in society. Senator Charles Sumner said in a speech about Negro suffrage:
The ballot is a schoolmaster…. Give him the ballot, and he will be educated into the principles of government. Deny him the ballot, and he will continue an alien in knowledge as in rights. (Page 195, Black Reconstruction)
The SCOTUS 2013 Ruling
It would be cheating our understanding of the facts to analyze our understanding of voting rights in this country based on one limited period by simply looking at the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
In 2012 during the US Supreme Court oral arguments of the now landmark Shelby v. Holder case, the appellate lawyer representing Shelby County, Alabama, Bert Rein, noted that the South had changed. Mr. Rein is correct; the South has changed. Let's talk about what is different, but before I get to what is different, I want to highlight what Rein was trying to unwind.
There were two parts of the Voting Rights Act under scrutiny in the Shelby case before the Supreme Court in 2012.
First, Section 4 had a couple of crucial provisions, including establishing a formula to identify areas that were racially discriminating in voting; for these covered areas, there were a more robust set of remedies for things like literary tests that were once used as a prerequisite for voter registration. Section 4 also protected your ability to exercise your right to vote regardless of one's limited proficiency in English.
The second part and probably the section that received the most discussion was section 5, which reviewed any voting change made by the covered area. Section 5 was also known as "pre-clearance."
So, Rein homes in on these sections during oral arguments as out of date. In other words, because the South did not give Black people literacy tests, force them to pay poll taxes, or any other of these other racist backward acts, the South was new!
How can you argue with that?
Of note, the more "liberal" Justices, Sotomayor, Kagan, and Beyer, made the point during the arguments that Congress had passed the 2005 Reauthorization of the Voting Rights Acts, which extended Section 5 for 25 years. However, from Rein's perspective, Congress's bill was in vain because it failed to change the formula or the states, as Rein argued that literacy tests do not exist in the South.
Well, to that end and perhaps ironically, this past Monday, the Supreme Court again saved Alabama by restoring a set of maps that a previous court said would hurt the state's Black voters. Before you go there, the Court in 2013 is not the same as 2022, so we cannot blame the "conservative" Court or call out the newly nominated justices for the 2013 ruling.
Nothing New Here.
My problem with a narrow lens of the ruling in 2013, which precipitated the 2022 punt, is that it's intellectually dishonest to believe that the current configurations in – mostly - Southern states is nothing more than dressing up a pig and pretending there isn't a stench.
In Du Bois' magnum opus, he makes a point about the Supreme Court that is ever relevant today,
While the Supreme Court was destined to assume powers which would at times threaten to stop the progress of the nation, almost without appeal. (Page 264, Black Reconstruction)
Control of redistricting maps and changes to voting in the 21st Century has the same goal that it had in 1866 and during the 1960s.
It [the South] sought to reestablish slavery by force, because it had no comprehension of the means by which modern industry could secure the advantages of slave labor without its responsibilities. The South, therefore, opposed Negro education, opposed land and capital for Negroes, and violently and bitterly opposed any political power. It fought every conception inch by inch: no real emancipation, limited civil rights, no Negro schools, no votes for Negroes. (Page 185, Black Reconstruction)
The proponents of "guardrails" make arguments about the potential for fraud, but not only are those arguments profoundly flawed and dishonest, but public policy should not address problems unseen or be solutions in search of a problem. That's like convicting someone without evidence or convicting someone before the trial and circulating rumors about their prospective guilt. Moreover, if fraud exists today, why not demonstrate the fraud by prosecuting the perpetrators.
That aside, I cannot tell who is standing up for the right to vote. In my discussion group last week, one of the regulars asked me a question that stumped me because he was right. He asked: in 1866, there was at least Thaddeus Stevens and Charles Sumner, but today, where are the Summers and Stevens who are willing to lay it all on the line?
Peace,
Monique