Sixty years ago last week, the Voting Rights Act was signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson. It was a landmark piece of legislation, the product of years of struggle by civil rights leaders like The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., and here in South Carolina, by activists like my father, James Moore Sr.
The law would break the chokehold of Jim Crow on the South by reinforcing the right to vote that is guaranteed by the 15th amendment. It also greatly handicapped the ability of the states to change their voting rules and throw up additional barriers to Black suffrage.
Included in the law were restrictions on how congressional districts can be drawn, a powerful shield in protecting the Black vote that outlawed racial discrimination in the redistricting process. It was this provision that led to the creation of the 6th Congressional District in South Carolina.
Today it’s the sole Democratic seat in South Carolina’s congressional delegation and the only congressional district represented by an African-American in our state.
Now, Republicans want to come after it.Fifth District Congressman Ralph Norman, a far-right lunatic running for governor, said last week that South Carolina should follow Texas’s lead and redraw our state’s congressional lines to target the 6th District.
To say this exactly 60 years after the Voting Rights Act became law is not a coincidence. Norman’s end goal is to undo the progress it created and return South Carolina to the “good ole days” when Black people had no political power, no voting rights and were treated as second-class citizens.
As the son of a civil rights activist who fought for the rights that I have now as a Black man in America in 2025, I will fight like hell to protect those rights and my father’s legacy. If Norman wants to play this game, Democrats need to go all in nationwide: level the GOP’s congressional power in blue states and use every tool we have to dilute their power. We must stop taking the high road and be willing to fight for democracy.
I’m inspired by the courage of Democratic lawmakers in Texas, who fled their state to block the GOP from unconstitutionally redrawing their congressional map ahead of next year’s elections. We need that courage in every Statehouse, city hall and in every Democratic member of Congress.
These are tough times. It’s easy to feel powerless and lose hope. But in those moments of doubt, think about the people who came before us and the struggles they overcame to ensure freedom and liberty for all, equal rights and the right to vote. We have been down before, but I know we will rise again.
S.C. Rep. J.A. Moore, first elected to the Statehouse in 2018, represents voters in Charleston and Berkeley counties.
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(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
