Email from Terri Sewell (D) Congressperson of Alabama

[Jeffersons Ghost]

Terri Sewell, of Alabama, was a superdelegate to the 2016 Democratic. Sewell endorsed Hillary Clinton for President, in the last election.

This week marks the sixth anniversary of Shelby v. Holder, the landmark Supreme Court decision that gutted the Voting Rights Act and left millions of minority voters across the nation vulnerable to the same methods of voter suppression used from Reconstruction through the Civil Rights Movement.

The Voting Rights Act was a pivotal turning point in the Civil Rights Movement. It came on the heels of the murders of Jimmie Lee Jackson in Marion, Alabama, the Reverend James Reeb in Selma, Alabama, and the atrocities of Bloody Sunday, also in Selma.

The VRA worked to protect African Americans’ right to register and vote and mandated that states with a history of discrimination and voter suppression submit any proposed changes in voting procedures to the Department of Justice or a federal district court in D.C. before they could go into effect.