60 Years Later, the Voting Rights Act Needs to Be Revived and Paired With a Bold Economic Agenda

Sixty years ago today, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act (VRA) of 1965 into law. The VRA, celebrated as the “crown jewel” of the Civil Rights Movement, was a landmark law that created legal procedures to stop race-based discrimination in voting and move the country closer to an inclusive and representative democracy.  

Now our struggle is for genuine equality, which means economic equality.

Three years later, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. explained to striking sanitation workers in Memphis: “With Selma1 and the voting rights bill, one era of our struggle came to a close and a new era came into being. Now our struggle is for genuine equality, which means economic equality.”2 Dr. King knew that while passing the VRA was a critical first step, it would not guarantee the well-being of Black and brown people. He continued, "[w]hat does it profit a man to be able to eat at an integrated lunch counter if he doesn't earn enough money to buy a hamburger and a cup of coffee?”

In recent years, however, there have been renewed attacks on Black and brown people’s right to vote, and the Supreme Court has gutted the VRA. The struggle for real political representation continues alongside the struggle for economic equality. A broader vision for a just, multiracial democracy is still necessary, and it must be developed in partnership with a bold agenda for widespread economic prosperity. The 60th anniversary of the VRA calls on us to embrace the interconnectedness of political and economic justice that Dr. King saw so clearly. 

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While the VRA ended poll taxes and literacy tests, racist voting policies have not gone away—they've merely shifted shapes. Modern-day voter suppression looks like “show me your papers” voting laws, mass voter purges, restrictions on voting by mail, polling place closures, and similar practices that disproportionately harm people of color. 

In recent years, the Supreme Court has severely eroded the VRA, and Congress has failed to breathe new life into it.

The VRA is no longer a bulwark against these voter suppression tactics. In recent years, the Supreme Court has severely eroded the VRA, and Congress has failed to breathe new life into it. In Shelby County v. Holder (2013), the Supreme Court dismantled the VRA’s very effective preclearance system, which had required states with a history of racist voting policies to pre-clear changes to their elections policies with the federal government. Then, in Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee (2021), the Court made it much harder to bring lawsuits under the VRA to challenge racially discriminatory voting policies after they were enacted. 

Shelby County opened the floodgates for oppressive voting laws around the country, depressing the turnout of people of color by millions each election cycle. States that before had to obtain approval to change their voting policies rushed to enact strict voter ID laws, close polling locations, and redraw congressional maps. And recently, a growing number of states, including Georgia, Texas, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Florida, have been passing omnibus voter suppression bills. 

Conversely, a small but growing number of states have been passing their own state-level Voting Rights Acts to address gaps in voter protections. These state laws revive and strengthen the VRA’s mechanisms to block voter suppression, bolster language access, and implement their own preclearance systems. But such protections are needed nationwide, along with new laws that will proactively make voting more accessible, implementing easier vote-by-mail and early voting procedures, same-day voter registration, automatic voter registration, and protections for systems-impacted voters. Bills like the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, the Freedom to Vote Act, the Inclusive Democracy Act, and the Expanding the Vote Act that would revive the VRA and establish more pro-voter policies have been introduced in Congress several times but have so far languished. 

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In the same decade that the VRA was passed, economic bills like the Equal Opportunity Act of 1964, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968 were also signed into law, prohibiting discrimination in sectors like employment and housing. This flurry of legislation embodied the Civil Rights Movement’s dual focus on political and economic equality for Black and brown people. But as with voting rights, 60 years later a bolder vision of economic justice is also needed to ensure that people of color in the United States can exercise economic power and build the lives they want for themselves and their families.

Today, the poverty rate for Black and Latino families is about twice that of white families. As of 2022, the average wealth of white families was more than $1 million higher than that of Black and Latino families, who struggle to meet basic household expenses at higher rates. To counteract these inequities, elected leaders must prioritize reforms that will affirmatively and drastically improve the lives of everyday Black and brown people. These include strong labor laws and a sufficiently high minimum wage. We also need more funding and regulation for affordable housing, child care, elder care, and health care, so people can not only make ends meet, but thrive. 

The right to vote can ring hollow when it does not result in policies that improve the material conditions of people’s lives.

The right to vote is a cornerstone of our democracy that must be protected through strong federal anti-discrimination legislation like the VRA—before it was substantially weakened. But the right to vote can ring hollow when it does not result in policies that improve the material conditions of people’s lives. Unsurprisingly, the economy was the most important issue to voters in the 2024 presidential election, including among Black voters. And among those who chose not to vote at all in 2024, many were disillusioned by economic issues and felt that the political candidates did not represent the interests of the poor, working class, or middle class.  

Americans want a bold economic agenda. Both working-class and college-educated voters overwhelmingly support unions, a higher minimum wage, higher taxes on the rich, and the expansion of Medicaid. But as evident from the recent passage of the falsely named “One Big Beautiful Bill,” the majority of lawmakers are instead prioritizing the interests of corporations and the wealthy elite.  

Dr. King’s remarks in 1968 offer a roadmap that is still useful today. Without a representative and accountable government, brought about by full political participation of the people, economic equality will remain out of reach. Pursuing economic and political justice simultaneously is essential in building a world where all people can thrive. 

• 1While the 15th Amendment had outlawed race-based barriers to voting back in 1870, Jim Crow policies such as poll taxes and literacy tests kept Black people from voting well into the 1960s. In the months leading up to the VRA’s passage, Dr. King led marches from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, to advocate for Black people’s right to vote, one of which culminated in peaceful protesters being violently attacked on the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Soon after, President Lyndon B. Johnson announced his plan to pass federal voting rights legislation. 
• 2Martin Luther King Jr., “All Labor Has Dignity” Speech (March 18, 1968), excerpted in Cornell West, The Radical King, Beacon Press, 2016.