A renewed fight to weaken Black voting power

Bolstered by a justice system that has unabashedly taken off its blindfold, national and state Republican leaders are moving full speed ahead to disenfranchise Black Americans, and their meaningful participation in the political process.

Denying and diluting the power of the Black vote in Missouri and in many states has taken on new life.

The recent ruling by the U. S. Supreme Court has all but guaranteed its destructive longevity.

States are free to carve up Congressional districts anyway they choose to render the Black vote impotent if not totally null and void.

Several states see the Court’s ruling as a new lease on life to suppress the Black vote and reduce Black representation in legislatures. Look at what is happening in Louisiana, Tennessee, Alabama, and South Carolina since the court rendered its decision. No doubt other states will follow.

Before the recent ruling, several Republican-led states had followed the Trump administration’s request to redraw congressional districts to reduce or eliminate districts with high Black populations that traditionally elect Democrats.

The goal is to increase the odds of electing Republicans to protect or expand the congressional majority in the upcoming midterm elections.

Look at the gerrymandered congressional map in Missouri that makes the 5th Congressional District, which once represented the core of Kansas City. The newly drawn district dilutes the voting power of Black citizens and thereby undermines their voice, negating their power to affect policies that impact their quality of life.

There seems to be no rest for the weary — for generations of Black Americans who fought and gave their lives to secure the right to vote for themselves and their progeny.

Those gains, decades, and centuries in the making, are at risk of being undone.

The right for Blacks to exercise their vote in the political process is neither safe nor secure — still.

The renewed effort to be hell-bent on mitigating, marginalizing and outright denying a bona fide American citizen their right to vote should deeply concern us all.

How can exercising the basic right to vote still be a major issue for citizens legally eligible to vote in supposedly the greatest democracy on earth, the United States of America?

Granted, our history of extending this basic right to all Americans has been a spotty one.

One of the main reasons is because originally the United States Constitution did not define who was eligible to vote, leaving that decision to each state.

Exercising the basic right to vote has been problematic for one group or another ever since.

One consequence has been getting a government that was not of the people, for the people and by the people as we like to think and brag about. Instead, the result is a government of, by and for a few.

At first, exercising the basic right to vote was extended only to white men who were property owners. Men and women who were not property owners could not vote in most states. Early in our history, women could vote in a few northern states and jurisdictions if they owned property. Freed slaves and other nonwhite people could vote in a few districts if they met the property requirements.

But even the property requirement was eliminated for white men, and they were eligible to vote in all states prior to the Civil War. Of course, that eligibility has continued.

Subsequent amendments to the Constitution prohibit any state from denying an American citizen the right to vote because of “race, color, or previous condition of servitude,” the 15^th Amendment that passed in 1870; or on “account of sex,” the 19^th Amendment, passed in 1920.

And the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

Many states have and continue to institute policies to make it hard for certain citizens to vote, most notably Black Americans, Native Americans, and other minorities. The measures being adopted in recent years, and even today, also target the elderly with unreasonable identification requirements and burdensome restrictions about how a vote can be cast.

In 2026, as we prepare to celebrate 250 years of our great, but imperfect nation, what a sad state of affairs we find ourselves in — the reputed greatest democracy on earth.

Janice Ellis is a columnist for the Missouri Independent.

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