Black community leaders and lawmakers in the North Carolina General Assembly Tuesday said voting rights are under attack across the nation, including in North Carolina.
“Many have made the assumption that we are now far removed from the grip of Jim Crow,” said Javita Lee Miller, policy director for Advance North Carolina. “However, I would like to humbly submit to you today that the era never ended for our communities. It’s just being spearheaded by the children and the grandchildren.”
Lee Miller drew parallels throughout history.
In 1870, Tennessee — the same state that, earlier this month, removed all House Democrats from their committee assignments for protesting a racial gerrymander — led the charge of implementing a poll tax disenfranchising Black voters for decades, she said. Now, federal lawmakers are pushing for the SAVE America Act, which would require voters to provide proof of citizenship and photo ID.
Sen. Val Applewhite (D-Cumberland) said she was part of a 2018 U.S. Supreme Court case, North Carolina v. Covington, where judges found that Republican state lawmakers had violated the federal Voting Rights Act by suppressing Black voters through gerrymandering.
“We can all agree that North Carolina has been ground zero for voter suppression tactics for years,” Applewhite said.
The Supreme Court significantly weakened the Voting Rights Act in an April ruling this year, limiting the landmark civil rights law to only prohibit maps drawn with the explicit intent of racially discriminating against voters, making it nearly impossible to challenge gerrymandering on VRA grounds.
GOP-led NC redistricting plan moving through House as Black leaders blast new lines
In recent months, states across the country have redrawn their congressional seats to add Republican seats at the request of President Donald Trump.
North Carolina Republicans passed a map in October that would shift the state’s 14-member congressional delegation from 10 Republicans and four Democrats to 11 Republicans and three Democrats. To flip the seat of Democratic Rep. Don Davis, Republican lawmakers “cracked” the historic Black Belt in eastern North Carolina, drawing criticism from Black leaders.
Senate Democratic Leader Sydney Batch (D-Wake) said it won’t be possible to prevent further gerrymandering without changing the makeup of the elected officials in the legislative building.
“If we don’t have courageous and brave Republicans to stand next to us to say that voters should actually have the right to choose their electeds versus the other way around, we’re going to continue to be in this fight,” she said. “Unless Democrats are in charge, I see no hope of having fair maps and actually being able to have a constitutional amendment.”
When Democrats were in the majority in the North Carolina legislature, voting rights advocates and Republicans urged them to pass legislation to ban gerrymandering in North Carolina. Democratic leaders at the time did not allow votes on those bills.
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