A VOICE FOR BLACK LIBERATION
By BRIAN CRAWFORD
August will mark the 60th anniversary of the signing of the Voting Rights Act, one of the major achievements of the civil rights movement. But rather than celebrate this landmark, Donald Trump has signed an executive order that would disenfranchise millions. Registering to vote would require proof of citizenship. Funds would be cut to states not in compliance, and the Justice Department would prosecute so-called “election crimes.”
Invariably, the argument made for this executive order and the hundreds of similar state and federal laws is to protect the “integrity” of the vote. This is premised on the fictitious charge of voter fraud propagated by the Republicans, of which there is no evidence. The real motivation is maintaining and expanding political power.
The GOP base is overwhelmingly white, and demographic shifts threaten the party’s power. Even in the South, particularly in Texas and Georgia, their majorities could be threatened due to the changing racial composition. The presidential election of 2008, the year the first Black president was elected, was a breaking point for the right. Up to this point, the disparity between Black and white voter participation had nearly closed. The right leans heavily on racial animus and hostility towards immigrants to gain support for its voter suppression.
Republicans have been implementing legislation to restrict the franchise in states in which they control the legislatures. They have resorted to limiting the number of polling places in districts with large Black populations, implementing strict enforcement of polling hours, mandating a reduction of days for early voting and making it a felony to distribute food and water to voters standing in line.
The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act (SAVE) recently passed by the House of Representatives was conceived to prevent noncitizens from voting. This piece of legislation intentionally places obstacles in the way of voter registration. The bill makes proof of citizenship mandatory. You must provide a birth certificate, passport, or other documentation. For married women this would be an extra burden since birth certificates must match one’s current name and identification. Married women who take on their spouse’s last name have no recourse to prove their identities under the SAVE Act. According to the Center for American Progress this affects 69 million women and 4 million men.
The bill would also force people registering or reregistering to do so in person, which would affect the elderly, disabled people, and those who would have to travel great distances such as Indigenous populations and rural communities. Rather than ensuring “integrity,” the legislation and executive orders will further depress the vote in a country with already low voter participation.
African Americans gained access to the ballot not by begging but by demanding their rights, with the understanding that facing intimidation and terror was more than a possibility. Such repression was the lived experience of African Americans throughout the country’s history; no whitewashing will hide America’s racist past or present.
African Americans, especially in the South, engaged in the most courageous of struggles, literally risking life and limb for the democratic right to participate in the country’s political life. From the Reconstruction period into the middle of the 20th century, Southern elites used poll taxes, grandfather clauses, threats, and violence in suppressing Black political power. In 1965 the Voting Rights Act was signed into law and, as with the history of our liberation struggle, it meant progress for all the working class. It lifted the barriers in a formal sense that prevented full participation in the political and social life of the country. But in practice, to be sure, barriers still exist and progress has been slowed. The reversals of the last few years are evidence of a retreat of the movement and the need for it to revive.
Supreme Court rulings and promises by the Democratic Party will not restore voting rights. The former, which is always subject to political trends rather than being above the political fray, has a right-wing conservative character. This Roberts’ Court severely weakened the Voting Rights Act in 2013 and is much more conservative today. As for the Democrats, at the moment they have no leadership, no direction, and are inert at a time when action is urgently needed. Their support is always limited and conditional, and their electoral fortunes take precedence over our demands. In the end, they are a party of, by, and for capitalism.
We must demand that voting rights be restored to those who are being removed from voter rolls and criminalized for attempting to vote. We must demand a repeal of all restrictive laws, as they are conceived to deprive the working class of its rights, which extend beyond the franchise.
Labor must organize on behalf of its rank and file and the rest of the working class. Today, it expends enormous resources campaigning for the Democratic Party. Instead, it must play an active role in the defense of voting rights. We fight not for people to vote for Democrats, but for the people’s right to vote. There can be no retreat in defending this most basic and fundamental right in what is supposed to be a democracy.
Elections are not an end in and of themselves. The dominant parties in the nations of the world serve wealth and power. The working class can only succeed by becoming a force worthy of the overwhelming majority to subdue the oppressive minority that rules with casual brutality.
This can be done by emphasizing the common interests of the working class across racial lines. Reductions and cuts to benefits such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid impact the elderly and poor of all races. Voting can be used as a statement, provide a victory for a struggle such as ballot initiatives, or to run candidates with a working-class analysis and politics.
Currently, the intensified efforts to deprive more people of access to the ballot is a power grab by the far right and must be understood as such. Only a class-conscious force can effectively oppose the right. Retreat should be unacceptable to not just the African American population but to the entire working class.
