Weekly Reflection: Beware of Jim Crow 2.0

Jan 24, 2024

Now that we are a few weeks into the new year, reports about the Presidential election cycle already dominate the news cycle. Iowa and New Hampshire were the focus of recent attention, and the scene will soon shift to South Carolina and other states with upcoming primaries. Yet in addition to the issues and personalities surrounding the primaries, there is mounting evidence that the struggle for voting rights is still with us. A decade ago in 2013, the Supreme Court issued a ruling in Shelby County v. Holder that struck down key aspects of the 1965 Voting Rights Act including the requirement for jurisdictions with a history of voter suppression based on race to receive federal pre-clearance of changes to any voter related legislation. Supporters of the decision claimed that the era of Jim Crow segregation was long gone making federal pre-clearance unnecessary. Here is what the historic NAACP Legal Defense Fund said about that decision:

In 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court dealt its greatest blow to the Voting Rights Act of 1965 in its Shelby County v. Holder decision that gutted essential protections of the VRA. Shelby ushered in a wave of discriminatory voting and redistricting laws. From voter suppression to discriminatory redistricting, Shelby County v. Holder irrevocably changed the landscape of voting rights in the United States.

The videos posted below provide examples of how this decision resulted in an array of voter suppression laws that disproportionately impact Black communities. Without using race based language, the racist consequences of these laws are less obvious especially to many white people than the poll taxes, literacy tests, and grandfather clauses of the Jim Crow era. However being less obvious does not mean being less unjust. That is why the term “Jim Crow 2.0” has emerged as a way to describe the ongoing promotion of racial disparities in many areas of our society including voting. For people of faith who believe that all people are made in the image of God and that justice for all is our shared calling, awareness of and resistance to Jim Crow 2.0 is essential at this crucial time in the life of our nation.