[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 10]
[House]
[Pages 14075-14076]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




             SUPPORT THE VOTING RIGHTS ACT REAUTHORIZATION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Lewis) is recognized for 5 minutes.

[[Page 14076]]


  Mr. LEWIS of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, the Voting Rights Act was good for 
America in 1965 and it is good and necessary in 2006. We must 
strengthen our resolve and complete the job that we began almost a year 
ago in a bipartisan way and pass the reauthorization of the Voting 
Rights Act tomorrow without amendment.
  The struggle for voting rights was not so long ago. It was not 75 or 
100 years ago. It was 41 years ago that this Voting Rights Act was 
passed. This is not ancient history. Yet so many Members of the House 
are too young to remember our very dark history of segregation and 
voting discrimination.
  The history of the right to vote in America is a history of conflict, 
of violence, of struggle for the right to vote. Many people died trying 
to gain that right. I was beaten and jailed because I stood up for it. 
The experience of minorities today tell us that the struggle is not 
over, and that the special provisions of the Voting Rights Act are 
still necessary.
  We do not want to go back to our dark past, and we must not go back. 
Forty-one years ago it was almost impossible for people of color to 
register to vote in many parts of the American South, in Georgia, in 
Alabama, and in Mississippi. Forty-one years ago, the State of 
Mississippi had a black voting-age population of more than 450,000, and 
only about 16,000 blacks were registered to vote.
  Just 41 years ago, people of color had to pay a poll tax, pass a so-
called literacy test in some States in the South. There were black men 
and women who were professors in colleges and universities, black 
lawyers and black doctors who were told they could not read or write 
well enough to register to vote.
  They were asked to interpret certain sections of the Constitution in 
southern States. Some were asked to count the number of bubbles in a 
bar of soap, others were asked to count the number of jelly beans in a 
jar.
  People stood in unmovable lines for the opportunity to register to 
vote. In some States voters could register only on 1 or 2 days a month; 
but those lines never moved, and those would-be voters were never 
registered. People were beaten, arrested, jailed, people even shot and 
killed for attempting to register to vote. It was a matter of life and 
death.
  On March 7, 1965, about 600 of us black men and women and a few young 
children attempted to peacefully march from Selma, Alabama, to 
Montgomery to the State capitol to dramatize to the Nation and to the 
world that people of color wanted to register to vote. The world 
watched as we were met with nightsticks, bullwhips, we were trampled by 
horses, and tear-gassed.
  Eight days after what became known as Bloody Sunday, President 
Johnson came to this podium and spoke to a joint session of Congress 
and began by saying, ``I speak tonight for the dignity of man and for 
the destiny of democracy.'' And during that speech, President Johnson 
condemned the violence in Selma and called on the Congress to enact a 
Voting Rights Act. He closed his speech by quoting the rights of the 
civil rights movement saying, ``And we shall overcome.''
  I was sitting next to Martin Luther King, Jr., in the home of a local 
family in Selma, Alabama, as we listened to Lyndon Johnson say, ``And 
we shall overcome.'' Tears came down his face. And we all cried. Dr. 
King said, ``John, the Voting Rights Act will be passed, and we will 
make it from Selma to Montgomery.''
  Congress did pass the Voting Rights Act. On August 6, 1965 it was 
signed into law.
  There was an elderly black man who lived in Selma, Alabama, who after 
Johnson had signed the Voting Rights Act became registered to vote for 
the first time. He was 91 years old. He said, ``I am registered now. I 
can die and go home to my Lord.''
  Today, people no longer meet attack dogs and bullwhips and fire hoses 
as they demonstrate or attempt to register to vote. Today, the tools of 
discrimination are not poll takes and literacy tests. But make no 
mistake, discrimination still exists. Look at Florida in 2000. Look at 
Ohio.
  The tools of discrimination are much more difficult, but just as 
dangerous. Today, the discrimination comes in the form of redistricting 
and annexation plans, at-large elections, polling place changes.
  In my own State of Georgia, the legislation went back to a period in 
our dark history by passing a voter ID law that would make it more 
difficult for the elderly, the poor and minorities to vote. Both a 
State and a Federal court jurist have called the law unconstitutional 
and stopped it from taking effect.
  We can do better. We must do better, and pass the Voting Rights Act 
without amendment tomorrow.

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