The quest to enable more people to vote has never taken place just in the South, but also in places like Connecticut, where it continues.
That was a theme among local speakers at a commemoration Thursday of the 50th anniversary of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s signing of the Voting Rights Act.
The impetus behind the law were Jim Crow-era restrictions preventing African-Americans from voting in Southern states. As speakers noted at Thursday’s commemoration, held outside Lincoln-Bassett School, a new wave of restrictions (voter ID laws, for instance, and cutbacks in early voting) have materialized in the South to depress black voter turnout. (Read more about that here.)
Common Cause of Connecticut, which organized the Wednesday event, issued a statement calling for Congress to overturn a Supreme Court decision, Shelby County v. Holder, that removed some of that Voting Rights Acts’ key protections.
Mayor Toni Harp — who besides celebrating the Act’s birthday celebrated her own birthday Thursday (receiving a “Happy Birthday” chorus at the event’s end — cited that Southern challenge. She also spoke of the success of state legislators in winning Connecticut ex-offenders the right vote. And she cited the continuing challenge to get more New Haveners to vote, especially in lower-income neighborhoods.
“A community that votes is a community that’s heard,” Harp said. (Click on the video at the top of the story to watch her remarks.)
Harp said the event took place at Lincoln-Bassett because that is the polling place for Ward 20, which has a largely African-American population and which has seen some of the city’s highest voter turnout in recent elections. Harp said her reelection campaign will focus on registering more voters in wards with lower turnouts this year.
Paul Bass Photo
She singled out Newhallville Alder Delphine Clyburn (pictured) for helping to turn out voters, who often line up outside the door at the school to wait to vote. “We chose in this ward to make sure that our voice would be heard through voting,” Clyburn remarked.