Fifty years ago (March 15, 1965), in the wake of Selma's Bloody Sunday, President Lyndon Johnson addressed Congress on the subject of 'The American Promise,' calling for the immediate passage of a voting right act that would end disfranchisement of African Americans.
"I think the phony claims and renewed political chicanery are a reflection of the fact that a century-and-a-half after the Civil War, and 50 years after the signing of the Voting Rights Act, a deeper struggle for democracy, equality and inclusion continues." -- Lorraine C. Minnite
Reader Comments- Undocumented Student Leaders and Mississippi Freedom Summer; Scott Walker's Scandals; Protect Voting Rights; U S Created Child Migrant Crisis; Egypt Jails Al Jazeera Staff; Precariat and Global Erosion of Job Security; Freedom Summer Legacies; Gabriel Kolko; Doonesbury on Climate Change; Correction to earlier posting
Cecily McMillan to be Released next week; Memorial Concert for Pete and Toshi Seeger-July 20; MEDICC's Educational Exchange to Havana
Reader Comments - ACTION NEEDED - Stop Iraq Executions; Voting Rights Act; Martin Luther King and Nonviolence; Our Postal Commons; De Blasio's Election; Imagine: Living in a Socialist USA; Tuition-Free Public College Education; New Orleans Teachers and Katrina;
Announcements: Muste Institute 40th Anniversary concert; South Africa Today - Online Meeting; Book Talk-Red Apple: Communism and McCarthyism in Cold War New York; Vandenberg's Role in US Global Domination
Arizona and Kansas have sued the Election Assistance Commission and are setting up a two-tiered system of voter registration, which could disenfranchise thousands of voters and infringe on state and federal law.
The conservative justices’ decision this past June in Shelby County v. Holder, striking down a key provision of the Voting Rights Act, has already unleashed in North Carolina the most restrictive voting law we’ve seen since the 1965 enactment of the VRA. Texas is restoring its voter ID law which had been blocked (pursuant to the VRA) by the federal government. And more is to come in other states dominated by Republican legislatures.
The name of the march on August 24th is the "National Action to Realize the Dream March". It is important that you use the name when speaking about the march so that people understand that this march is not just a commemoration, but a continuation of the efforts 50 years ago. Also bus information for New York City Left Labor Project bus to Washington.
Reader Comments - Songs of Immigration; Fruitvale Station; Blow the Whistle, Face Life in Jail; Bradley Manning; On Vultures and Red Wings: Billionaire Gets New Sports Arena in Bankrupt Detroit; U.S. Prison Population; North Carolina Worst Voter Suppression Law;
Shorts - You Helped Cut the Pentagon Budget; Justice Department's Bold Voting Rights Move;
Conference - The Global E. P. Thompson: Reflections on Making of the English Working Class after Fifty Years Oct. 3-5
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