Members of the Youth Panel at NAACP Voter Restoration Summit and Panelists at Plenary Session: L to R : Rev. Dukes, Benard Simelton, Dorry Miles, Marcia Johnson, JaTaudne Gilchrist, Dr. Gary Bledsoe

Special to the Democrat by John Zippert, Co-Publisher

This past weekend, the NAACP Alabama State Conference of Branches held a Voter Restoration Summit in Shelby County on the 11th anniversary of the Shelby vs. Holder Supreme Court decision which invalidated Section 4B of the 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA). This decision ended the pre-clearance provisions of Section 5, which was a major benefit of the act. Since this decision, many states adopted voter suppression laws to limit voting by Black, Brown and other people of color in our nation.

The Summit began with a rally at the Shelby County Courthouse in Columbiana, Alabama, to support the John Lewis Voter Advancement Act, which would reverse the decision of the Supreme Court by updating the conditions to find a state or locality in violation of voting rights, based on complaints during the past decade. Several speakers urged the crowd to join in the effort to restore the VRA, expand voting rights and actively participate in the upcoming November election.

The rally was followed by a meeting for people to get to know each other and listen to some more speakers. Many representatives of the “Devine 9” Black fraternities and sororities spoke about their efforts in voter registration, education and engagement. They stressed the importance of Black voter turnout in the 2nd. and 7th Congressional Districts, where there is a new opportunity to elect two Black representatives to Congress for the next session beginning in January 2025.

Attorney Faya Rose Toure of the Save Ourselves Movement for Justice and Democracy (SOS) announced that SOS and other organizations were sponsoring a rally at the bridge in Selma on August 6, 2024, the anniversary of the signing of the 1965 VRA and working toward a statewide effort to increase Black turnout in the up=coming election.

The next day, Saturday, June 22, the Summit shifted to the Arts Building on the campus of the University of Montevallo, still in Shelby County. The program began with a plenary session, followed by a youth panel and workshops in the afternoon.

At the opening session, Rev. Dukes, President of the Shelby County NAACP Branch said, “the purpose of the Summit was to learn about the Voting Rights Act and answer the question of why it is important to vote in 2024.”
Benard Simelton, State President of the NAACP, spoke about the negative impacts of the Shelby vs. Holder decision on voting rights in Alabama and other states. He mentioned that in the past legislative session, the Alabama Legislature passed SB1 which tries to ‘criminalize’ the process of absentee voting and seeks to discourage people in Alabama from helping others to cast absentee ballots. Shelby vs. Holder makes it possible for states like Alabama to keep passing more restrictive voter suppression laws to depress the Black vote. He concluded by saying, “our voice is our vote! If we don’t use it, we will surely lose it.”

Marcia Johnson with the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights spoke on Alabama being the birthplace of democracy because of the Selma to Montgomery March which led to the passage of the 1965 VRA. In 2006, the VRA was extended, on a bi-partisan basis, for twenty-five years with 98 votes in the U. S. Senate and 393 in the U. S. House of Representatives. Since then, there has been a backlash and retrenchment against voting rights, including the Shelby decision in 2013. She called the November 5th election, “The most important in our lifetime African Americans must rise up; we must fight to keep our democracy, it is only fair that we do so; we will triumph!”
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Ms. JaTaudne Gilchrist of the Alabama ACLU, who has been active in fighting voter suppression, said, “Although I am fatigued personally, we must still work to insure the future of democracy. Three things keep me moving forward, 1. The value of rigor in our work; the importance of vision and the hope for justice. WE must be prepared for the long haul of this work. We need a ten-year plan and a 100-year plan for our work. We are the ‘benders’ of the arc of justice that Dr. King was talking about.”

Dr. Gary Bledsoe, President of the Texas State NAACP, said the Shelby vs. Holder decision was the new Fort Sumpter of our age. Saying this decision was the start of a second civil war to prevent us from voting. He concluded by saying, “I people are working so hard to prevent you from voting – there must be something very powerful and important for you to vote.”

The plenary was followed by a panel of young voters ages 18-39, who spoke on why they are voting and some of the things their friends have said about why they are not voting. This panel was instructive on the distance and difficulties of more experienced voting organizers being able to reach young voters and young leaders.

There were several panels in the afternoon on issues like maternal healthcare and women’s reproductive rights, attacks on diversity, equity and inclusion, and others. This was followed by a closing session in which Benard Simelton and Shalela Dowdy, a community activist and law student from Mobile, reviewed the provisions of the John Lewis Voter Advancement Act and the Freedom to Vote Act, which are pending in Congress and the importance of voting in the upcoming November election, especially in Congressional District 2 and District 7 in Alabama.