The Supreme Court Deals a Gut Punch to Voting Rights: A Southerner Reflects

The guest is Steve Bevis. He is a communications professional who met and worked with presidents, senators, representatives, governors, and corporate executives. 

Bevis recalls the racial injustices he saw growing up in Alabama. He discusses important changes in race relations in the South from the Civil War to the present. There was considerable progress in the 1960s and later, he notes, but setbacks in recent years are concerning. Bevis points especially to the recent Supreme Court ruling in Louisiana v Callais that significantly weakened the 1965 Voting Rights Act. That controversial ruling can made it difficult for blacks to win elections in the South, even though African Americans constitute a large portion of the population in many southern states. After the Court’s ruling, leaders in several Republican-led southern states moved quickly to redraw congressional maps through partisan gerrymandering.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:07

Welcome to History is Relevant. I'm Robert Brent Topplin. We have a different format for this podcast. I'm inviting an associate and friend, Steve Bevis, to discuss the significance of a recent Supreme Court decision that essentially eliminated provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. That legislation, of course, enacted in the days of Lyndon Johnson's presidency, helped to elect African Americans to Congress. The law aimed to dismantle systemic Jim Crow era practices that prevented millions of African Americans in the South from casting ballots. Critics of the Supreme Court's recent Calais ruling say it will allow extreme gerrymandering, making it extremely difficult for black candidates to win elections in the South, even though African Americans constitute a large portion of the electorate in many southern states. The court's decision will enable officials to manipulate electoral maps in ways that favor white candidates. Recently I participated in a group discussion about current events, and when attention turned to the controversial Calais ruling of the Supreme Court, Steve Bevis asked for a few minutes to offer some personal thoughts about the topic. As a white man who grew up in Alabama, he recalled racial injustices in his state and in the South. Steve gave us a lot to think about. I'm asking him to share his observations about personal experiences and his familiarity with that history. Hopefully, Steve will also give us his take on a provocative question. Where are we today in majority-minority relations? What might the road ahead look like? Before turning the microphone over to Steve, here's a brief biographical sketch. I'll only mention a few highlights from a long list of significant work in public service. Steve is a retired journalist and public relations professional who spent four decades working in Washington, D.C. He's been a newspaper reporter and editor. Steve worked for five years on Capitol Hill as a congressional press secretary, and more than 30 years in public relations and communications services. He met and worked with four presidents, numerous senators and representatives, governors, historians, labor leaders, and corporate executives. Steve, I'm delighted to have you on the program. As I mentioned, I'll turn this commentary over to you. I'll offer just a few thoughts along the way and provide a wrap-up at the end.

SPEAKER_01 3:10

Well, history is indeed relevant, Bob, and I'm so pleased to have the opportunity to join you today. As you noted, the recent Supreme Court decision in Calais essentially gutted the Voting Rights Act of 1964, and that was a cornerstone of the civil rights movement of the 1960s. And that decision is a stark reminder of history's relevance, I believe. So why did that decision weigh so heavily on me? Well, I grew up in what I thought and hoped were the last vestiges of Jim Crow. Unfortunately, I was wrong. Allow me to explain. I was born a baby boomer, boomer, in 1953, a year before another landmark Supreme Court decision, Brown v. Board of Education, when the court unanimously ruled that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional. The historic 9-0 ruling struck down the quote separate but equal, end quote, doctrine previously established by the 1896 Plessy versus Ferguson case, one of the worst Supreme Court decisions of all time. The historian Stephen Ross, in his new book entitled The Secret War Against Hate, posits that the Second American Civil War actually began on the evening of October 20th, 1945. As millions of veterans came back from World War II, Kukuk's Klan leaders sounded a battle cry to preserve their beloved white Protestant nation from its many enemies. More than 3,000 attended this rally, where a giant cross was burned on Stone Mountain, Georgia. The Founding Fathers, the Klan insist, had created a nation based on white Christian rule, and they would not allow traitors or people of color to change sight. This was the backdrop that existed throughout much of the South, even as the federal government and the courts moved to try and undo the wrongs of Jim Crow. And as I grew up, I saw the horrors of Jim Crow. I saw colored and white sign in buildings, in bus and train terminals, and of course black people were relegated to the back of the bus. I remember singing Dixie in elementary school as one of the songs we would sing at the beginning of school day. Oh, I wish I was in the land of cotton. Old times there are not forgotten. Look away, look away, look away, Dixie land. For me, that is so hard to believe today. It's just unconscionable, but I remember it. But what I didn't understand at the time, but would later come to realize was that this was part of the lost cause, that ideological narrative that was created by white Southerners after the Civil War to reconcile their defeat. Their claim that the war was fought over states' rights, not slavery. That claim, of course, has no truth. Alexander Stevens, the vice president of the Confederacy, in his quote, cornerstone speech in March of 1861, made clear what the foundation of the Confederacy was. Stevens said it was built on the quote great truth, in quote, that black people were not equal to white people, and that slavery was their natural condition. So much of the war not being about slavery. But I remember going to the movies where blacks were forced to sit in the balcony. Whites had to had the lower had the larger lower level. I remember sermons where a preacher spoke that there would be a separate place in heaven for blacks and whites. And I remember Alabama's racist governor, George Wallace, proclaiming in his inaugural address in January of 1963, segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever. And then a few months later, I remember Wallace standing in the doorway of Foster Auditorium on the campus of the University of Alabama, my alma mater, to try to keep two black students, Vivian Malone and James Hood, from registering for classes. After President John Kennedy federalized the Alabama National Guard, Wallace, of course, stepped aside. 57 years later, in August of 2020, the legendary Alabama football coach Nick Sabin led hundreds of his players, coaches, and staff on a peaceful march across campus to protest social injustice and police brutality. Having grown up when Wallace was governor, Sabin's march was a proud moment for me, a ray of hope for the future. Growing up, I remember about reading about the KKK cross burnings and seeing photos in newspapers of the hooded clan members. And of course, I remember the September 15, 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham. They killed four young girls. One of those young girls was a friend of Condoleezza Rice, the future Secretary of State, who was born in Birmingham. And speaking of Birmingham, or as it drew the name Bomingham in the late 50s and early 60s, Birmingham was only 40 miles from my hometown. I can still see the images of young blacks having hoses turned on them by firemen, and police charging protesters with German shepherds. All of this ordered by the Birmingham police chief Bull Connor. So this is the Jim Crow South, which I grew up in. Looking back, it was certainly not a pretty picture, and certainly nothing to be proud of. But legislation like the Voting Rights Act of 1965 slowly began to change the face of the South. Black leaders emerged and won elections to state, local, and federal positions. Gone were the signs separating the races. Schools were integrated. Even if it dictate time, my middle school was integrated in the fall of 1965, some 11 years after the Supreme Court's landmark Brown v. Board of Education ruling in 1954. And in college, I had the distinct pleasure of seeing George Wallace crown a black homecoming queen at the University of Alabama. A string of progressive governors helped change the South's image throughout the late 60s, early 70s, and into the 80s. Bob Graham of Florida, of course, who also became a senator from Florida. Bill Clinton of Arkansas, who became president, Chuck Robb of Virginia, who also became a senator. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, a governor who later became a senator. And Ann Richards of Texas. And then Doug Wilder of Virginia, the first black governor in U.S. history. Then, of course, there was the historic election of Barack Obama as the first black president in U.S. history. I remember meeting and talking with President Obama at a reception a couple of nights before his inauguration. We talked for several minutes about the schools he and Mrs. Obama were considering for their daughters. It was a great honor for me. And I remember walking along the National Mall in Washington the night before Obama would become president. And there was such a spirit and sense of hope. Hope. Hope for change. And then having the Supreme Court put what I would term a dagger in all the progress that has come about since the Voting Rights Act was passed back in 1965. After growing up in the Jim Crow South, seeing progress being made in race race relations, and now the Calais decision, it really struck a chord with me, a searing chord. And so today, with that decision in mind, where do we go from here? What does that robe to the future look like, as Bob asked? Well, I think it looks like a call, a clarion call for action. People have to stand up, much like we've seen in the protest uh in recent months, uh, thousands, hundreds of thousands of people protesting policies. That has to grow. We have to get out to the polls and make a difference. That's where our voice can be heard. Look, this Calais decision did not come overnight, Bob, as you know. Um the Chief Justice John Roberts, um who I had when he was uh nominated, had high hopes that he would be, you know, uh a swing vote at times, and occasionally he has, but the voting rights act is something that he targeted as far back as the early 80s when he was a young Justice Department attorney in the Reagan administration. He's been after it for years, they stayed at it. Um the conservative majority on the court uh you know clearly wanted to get rid of it. Uh six to three, all the six conservative justices voting in the affirmative. So what do we have to do? We have to get people to the polls, we have to get activists, and they're out there. But this you hear it every election cycle that this is the most important election in my lifetime. Well, these 26 midterms, I believe, really are. Uh they really are. We're at a defining moment in the democracy of this country, and we can win. We can't win. And that's the starting point that I see, Bob, and that's the hope I have. And I also see young people again beginning to get engaged, and that is also so critical. You know, uh I'm on that, I'm on that arc, as I say to my kids sometimes, I'm on the downside of the mountain. That doesn't mean I'm not active and and uh seem to be I seem to be busier in retirement than I was working. Uh but uh and that's all good, that's all good stuff. Um but having young people enthused and wanting to act and wanting to get out and do things and volunteer for things. If you, you know, even if it's just going and sitting in an office and answering the phone or or you know stuffing stuffing mail, uh helping do any chore, volunteer volunteers are the heart of a campaign. Um there are only so many paid positions, and the people who run the campaigns, they are depending on you, on me, to help get the word out and to look to bring back the equation of hope. Uh just because we lost that Supreme Court decision does not mean that uh the future has to be bleak. It's challenging, yes, but it is not bleak. So let's uh I'll vote for hope.

SPEAKER_00 15:18

You're certainly right, Steve, and we can make a difference. We can work to shape the outcome of the election. I'd like to add a few thoughts to an important point you made, Steve. As you mentioned, the Supreme Court ruling, Louisiana v. Calais, greatly weakened the Voting Rights Act. It made it exceedingly difficult and costly for minorities, not only blacks, but Hispanics as well, to challenge partisan mapmaking, uh, that is gerrymandering that favors white candidates in the South. Now that's a political game that ignores a huge portion of the southern states' populations. About a third of citizens in Mississippi, Georgia, Louisiana are black. And I believe it's about a fourth of Alabama's population, too. Thanks to the Voting Rights Act, blacks and other minorities had some representatives elected in the South. Now, after the conservative majority delivered a near-death blow to the Voting Rights Act, minority representation will be substantially erased. How do members of the court's majority justify eviscerating the Voting Rights Act? Well, they often say that we're now a very different nation. They say we've come a long way toward achieving racial equality, and therefore the laws, the old laws about civil rights and voting rights act especially, are no longer needed. The behavior of legislators in the South, just hours after the court announced the Calais ruling, showed how wrong that claim is. The legislators' reaction was to weaponize racial politics. With breakneck speed, white Republican legislators in Tennessee, Alabama, Louisiana, I believe Florida was in there too. They rushed to produce new voting maps that eliminated minority representation. The districts, new districts they created, ensure that white Republicans would be elected instead of blacks. For example, back in your old home state of Alabama, Steve, the court, in this case, the Supreme Court, recently ruled for Alabama that use of a new map that removed a second-majority black district was okay. The Supreme Court's supermajority created chaos as well. In some southern states, primary voting was already underway. In the past, justices of the Supreme Court honored the so-called Purcell principle that federal courts shouldn't interfere in voting matters close to the time of an election. The conservative majority on the court tossed aside that principle, and evidently they wanted the Calais decision to affect the elections right away this year. Here's an example of that chaos. In Columbia, Tennessee, the mayor, a Democrat, had spent months campaigning for a seat in Congress. Then Tennessee's Republican legislators adopted a new map that removed his home from the district. All that campaigning for nothing. Steve, you mentioned the career of the Supreme Court's Chief Justice, John Roberts. Well, here's an interesting point about Robert's words compared to his actions. In 2005, during Senate hearings concerning his nomination for a seat on the Supreme Court, Roberts said he would be nonpartisan when interpreting the Constitution. Using a baseball metaphor, Roberts explained his job would be to call balls and strikes, not to pitch or hit. Yet in recent years, Roberts and his colleagues in the court supermajority often appeared to be hitting and pitching. In several rulings on civil rights, they broke along ideological lines. They seemed to be backing the political objectives of the party that had nominated them. In other words, those justices were acting like politicians in robes. Thank you, Steve, for reminding us about progress and setbacks in the struggles for voting rights. And thanks, Steve, for encouraging us to do our part for democracy this year by getting out the vote.