The Short Life and Early Death of Voting Rights

Notes from America with Kai Wright

WNYC Studios

News Commentary, Politics, History, News

4.4 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 12 July 2021

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Birth, August 1965. Death, July 2021. So now what for multiracial democracy? Mark Joseph Stern, who covers the Supreme Court for Slate, explains how the Roberts Court has rewritten the Voting Rights Act to render it a dead letter law. We explore what, if anything, can be done to revive it. And Kai talks with Vann Newkirk II, a senior editor at The Atlantic, about a recent essay in which he tracks the legacy and impact of the Voting Rights Act alongside his family’s history in Mississippi. Influenced by his mother’s tenacity in exercising her right to vote, he reflects on her dedication to this civic duty and imagines how to preserve that access for the sake of a real democracy. Companion listening for this episode: A Zombie Political Party (Oct 19, 2020) The Republican Party seems more interested in protecting minority rule, than winning elections. Kai talks with Charlie Sykes, founder and editor of The Bulwark, about his own journey away from the GOP, and the party’s journey away from democracy. They’ve Never Wanted You to Vote (Oct 26, 2020) From poll taxes to the canard of “voter fraud,” it’s always been a struggle to cast a ballot in America. We review the record, and investigate the anti-democracy enablers of 2020. “The United States of Anxiety” airs live on Sunday evenings at 6pm ET. The podcast episodes are lightly edited from our live broadcasts. To catch all the action, tune into the show on Sunday nights via the stream on WNYC.org/anxiety or tell your smart speakers to play WNYC. We want to hear from you! Connect with us on Twitter @WNYC using the hashtag #USofAnxiety or email us at [email protected].

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is the United States of anxiety, a show about the unfinished business of our history and its grip on our future.
0:08.0	With states across the country passing new laws that make voting more difficult, especially for minorities, the Supreme Court today
0:14.8	gave a green light.
0:15.8	This is not simply Jim Crow.
0:17.8	This is James Crow Esquire.
0:20.0	Republicans have decided we don't like what happened in 2020.
0:22.8	We made it easier to vote by mail, we made it easier to vote early,
0:25.1	and we made it easier in a number of ways to try to encourage people to vote
0:27.8	and guess what they did.
0:28.7	Register, vote, but most importantly, use your power.
0:36.0	I thought this would be over when I was a little girl by now,
0:39.2	but it's not.
0:40.0	It's no longer hoses and laws that say you cannot vote.
0:43.2	It is this insidious nature that says it's race neutral.
0:45.8	We have already waited a hundred years and more,
0:50.2	and the time for waiting is gone.
0:57.0	Welcome to the show. I'm Kay Wright.
0:59.0	On August 6th, 1965, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law.
1:05.6	And any fair reading of American history would have to conclude that this law was among the
1:10.6	most consequential ever to pass through Congress.
1:14.0	And at the time it was a consensus measure, one public opinion poll that year found
1:17.8	more than 90% of people supported, even in the South the big portion of white people were behind it.
	...

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