The Daily Escape:
Third Selma March, 1965 â photo by Charles Fentress Jr  shows Frank Calhoun, 16, of Meridian, MS, his face smeared with white suntan lotion and the word “VOTE” written on his forehead.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. helped lead marchers on March 21 to March 25 from Selma, Alabama to the state capital in Montgomery. It was their third attempt after a brutal crackdown by police on their first try on March 7, that caused the injuries that resulted in calling the first march “Bloody Sunday.”
On Aug. 6, President Lyndon Johnson signed the national Voting Rights Act of 1965. In 2013, the Supreme Court gutted the VRA, with its decision in Shelby County vs. Holder.
Since Martin Luther King Jr delivered his iconic “I have a dream” speech in August 1963, the number of Black Americans elected to the US Congress has dramatically increased. But it took until 2019, more than 54 years later, for the share of Black members serving in the House of Representatives to equal the percentage of Black Americans in the US population (12%).
To date, only seven states have sent a Black representative to the US Senate, and many states have never elected a Black representative to either House of Congress.
Here’s a look at Black representation in every US Congress since 1963:
A few words on the Voting Rights Act of 1965: Since the Voting Rights Act was gutted in 2013, 1,688 polling places have been shuttered in states previously bound by the Act’s preclearance requirement. Texas officials closed 750 polling places. Arizona and Georgia were almost as bad. Unsurprisingly, these closures were mostly in communities of color.
In December 2019, the House passed HR 4, the Voting Rights Advancement Act, now named the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act, to restore the safeguards of the original VRA. It’s been collecting dust on Mitch McConnell’s desk ever since. He and his GOP colleagues continue to sit idly by as Republican state officials suppress the vote with no accountability.
If your vote didn’t count, they wouldn’t be trying so hard to suppress it. There’s no telling what change we’ll be able to make once we win the battle for voting rights.
So, time to wake up America! Change has to come. The fight didnât start with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr and it didnât end with John Lewis. The fight continues. To help you wake up, listen again to Sam Cookeâs âA Change Gonna Comeâ. It was released as a single in December 1964.
Cooke was inspired by hearing Bob Dylanâs âBlowinâ in the Windâ, and was also moved by Dr. Kingâs August 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech. But it was Cookeâs experience in October 1963, when he and his entourage were turned away from a whites-only Holiday Inn in Shreveport, Louisiana, despite having reservations â that directly triggered him to write “A Change is Gonna Come.”
“Change” was released as a single two weeks after Cooke’s murder at age 33Â on Dec. 11, 1964. It was quickly embraced by civil rights activists.
Still relevant, in so many ways, itâs possible to see it as a comprehensive review of the Trump administration. The linked video is as powerful to watch as the lyrics to Cookeâs song are to hear:
