Opinion

Op-Ed: The Continuing Fight for The Right to Vote

Published

10 years ago

September 7, 2016

A panel of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously rebuked the North Carolina legislature for acting with “discriminatory intent” in passing restrictions on the right to vote that “target African-Americans with almost surgical precision.”

The decision came as we approach the 51st anniversary of the Voting Rights Act on August 6. Reinforced by similar rulings in the appellate court in Texas and a district court in Wisconsin, the decision is a victory for our democracy and our Constitution.

The voting impediments were passed by North Carolina in 2013 in the wake of the Supreme decision in Shelby v. Holder which struck down the central provision of the Voting Rights Act: the requirement that areas with a history of discrimination gain prior approval from the Justice Department before changing voting regulations.

Chief Justice John Roberts, the activist Republican judge, decided to rewrite the law that was passed with overwhelming bipartisan support, arguing that since we now live in a “post-racial society,” requiring prior approval for voting law changes was no longer justified.

The flood of legislation that followed — all erecting barriers to make voting harder for African-Americans in particular — proved the chief justice’s fantasy was a lie.

In North Carolina, the legislature acted immediately after the Supreme Court decision came down. Its motivation, the Fourth Circuit panel found, was clear.

African-American turnout had surged in 2008 and 2012 (with Barack Obama at the head of the Democratic ticket), nearing parity with the turnout of white voters for the first time. Obama had taken the state in 2008 and lost it closely in 2012.

But in 2010, conservative Republicans had taken control of the legislature and the statehouse.

The new majority acted aggressively to fend off the threat posed by growing African-American turnout.

As Judge Diana Motz, writing for the unanimous panel, summarized, the legislators “requested data on the use, by race, of a number of voting practices. Upon receipt of the race data, the General Assembly enacted legislation that restricted voting and registration in five different ways, all of which disproportionately affected African-Americans.”

The three-judge panel in Richmond, Virginia, unanimously concluded that the law was racially discriminatory, overturning a requirement that voters show photo identification to vote and restoring same-day voter registration, a week of early voting, pre-registration for teenagers, and out-of-precinct voting.

As Ari Berman, the voting rights expert who reports for The Nation magazine noted, the decision comes after North Carolina’s presidential primary in March provided a troubling indication of what might be expected in the general election — students waiting in three-hour lines, foreign-born U.S. citizens asked to spell their names to poll workers for no reason, and elderly voters born during Jim Crow turned away from the polls for not meeting the new ID requirements.

“The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals exposed for the world to see the racist intent of the extremist element of our government in North Carolina,” exulted the Rev. William Barber II, president of the North Carolina NAACP, on a press call Friday afternoon. “The ruling is a people’s victory, and it is a victory that sends a message to the nation.”

Dr. Martin Luther King led the movement that culminated in the Voting Rights Act over a half-century ago. He understood that voting was the foundational right of citizenship.

To strip someone of the right to vote is to strip them of their place in a self-governing community. In a 1957 speech entitled “Give Us the Ballot,” King argued, “So long as I do not firmly and irrevocably possess the right to vote I do not possess myself. I cannot make up my mind — it is made up for me. I cannot live as a democratic citizen observing the laws I have helped to enact — I can only submit to the edict of others.”

King understood that discriminatory election laws not only hurt minorities or the working poor, they also undermined the legitimacy of our elections and thus of our government.

The North Carolina decision and similar decisions in Texas and Wisconsin offer the hope that the courts will act to frustrate at least the most blatant versions of new Jim Crow laws. Those decisions will remove barriers for literally millions of voters.

But the courts can only reaffirm the right to vote. That right is not effective if it is not used. The courts have lowered the barriers in North Carolina and other states.

Now the citizens must mobilize and vote in large numbers to exercise the power that they have.

Oakland Post

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Arts and Culture

COMMENTARY: Black Music is the Sound of Black Freedom: Let Us Reclaim Both This Juneteenth

Black Music Month started when Black Music Association members Ed Wright, Kenny Gamble and his wife, journalist and radio host Dyanna Williams were able to persuade President Jimmy Carter to establish the observation on June 7, 1979.

Published

3 weeks ago

June 9, 2026

Oakland Post

Robert Johnson (1911-1938) is thought of as the godfather of blues music, especially Delta blues. The 29 songs recorded by him during his short life have been of massive inspiration to guitarists and musicians over the last 80 years. Public domain photo.

By Wanda Ravernell

Black Music Month and Juneteenth are inextricably linked – Black music is the sound of our freedom.

From the plaintive moans of the enslaved Africans’ ‘sorrow songs,’ to the fields of Civil War battle where Black soldiers picked up abandoned bugles, to the upright piano played in juke joints on Saturday night and churches come Sunday morning, our ancestors’ innovation in the face of want, fear, degradation, and hopelessness has yielded genres of music imitated ’round the world.

In 2000, Congress made it official. In 2009, Pres. Barack Obama changed the name to African American Music Heritage Month and in 2023, Pres. Joe Biden changed it back to Black Music Month, two years after he declared Juneteenth a national holiday, the result of a movement led by Opal Lee.

Our ancestors battle for freedom over these last 400 years and the music that allowed them expression of their humanity deserved to be honored.

But we may be losing sight of the value of their sacrifices.

‘Sing a Song Full of the Faith That the Dark past Has Taught Us…’

Along with the long-known exploitation of Black musicians whose recordings were stolen by record companies, the commercialization of Juneteenth feels like another kind of theft.

I had never heard of Juneteenth until I moved to the Bay Area from my hometown of Philadelphia. I didn’t know it was one of many freedom festivals celebrated by descendants of enslaved people in the United States.

Emancipation Day was Jan. 1 in Pennsylvania, April 16 in Wash., D.C., May 20 in Florida, and Aug. 8 in Kentucky. But Juneteenth, June 19, has the most renown, known in Texas as the ‘colored peoples’ Fourth of July.’

It was marked by parades, beauty pageants, rodeos, backyard barbecues and church picnics.

Yes, church.

The formerly enslaved began the day praying in thanks for their freedom just as they had prayed for Jubilee – the day of freedom – when they had chains on their feet and hands. They ‘testified’ about their past suffering and how they had managed to overcome.

And they sang.

Although, we will not hold it this year, Omnira Institute’s Juneteenth Ritual of Remembrance recalled this part of Juneteenth with prayers in the languages of the African captives. In the middle of the ceremony, a soloist would lead us in singing “Many Thousand Gone” while we took turns reciting portions of the Emancipation Proclamation, the news of freedom that took more than two years to reach Texas – two months after the Civil War ended.

“Many Thousand Gone” was famously recorded by Black luminary Paul Robeson in 1947:

“No more auction block for me,

No more, no more

No more auction black for me

Many thousand gone.”

Other verses refer to the ‘pint of salt’ and the ‘driver’s lash,’ the realities of enslavement that they had survived.

‘Sing a Song Full of the Hope That the Present has Brought Us’

All of the genres of African American music have at their root songs like that, the essence being, as Stevie Wonder, wrote, “the joy inside our pain.” So Black music is not just music. It is our story, our history, our very strength.

During the Civil Rights Movement, which peaked 100 years after slavery ended, the people testified that it was the freedom songs – based on spirituals – that gave them the heart to march, face attack dogs, fire hoses, beatings, and shootouts with vigilantes.

The music reminded them that power was in the people. That music, our music, can do so again. We don’t have to accept the commodification of the products of our culture.

The power of those songs is showing a resurgence across the South as we battle again for the right to self-determination through the ballot box.

Those songs are the voices of our ancestors, voices forged in their blood, their sweat, their tears, joy and, above all, faith. Those songs, those prayers live in our blood and our very breath.

This Juneteenth, let us reclaim those holy voices expressed in Black music for ourselves. It is our birthright. It can neither be bought nor sold. No more. Never again.

Wanda Ravernell is the executive director of Omnira Institute, sponsor for 18 years of the Juneteenth Ritual of Remembrance and Oakland’s 11^th Annual Black-Eyed Pea Festival, which will take place on Sept. 12.