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If you do a an internet search for the phrase Jim Crow Era Years one of the first things that comes up is a Wikipedia page titled Jim Crow laws. In that synopsis you will find this brief but succinct encapsulation, “The last of the Jim Crow laws were generally overturned in 1965 by the Voting Rights Act of 1965.” Enter the United States Supreme Court circa 2026.

Today’s Supreme Court ruling in Louisiana v. Callais is the latest chapter in decades old assault on the landmark 1965 law that ended the Jim Crow era and gave rise to racial equality at the American voting booth. What congress said in 1965 in part was, racial and political discrimination have no place in American voting. It worked as well as any law ever passed in Congress. The success of the VRA has had ripple effects throughout all aspects of American society, overwhelmingly positive.

Dismantling the VRA has been the dream and goal of conservative judicial activists for generations. But is wasn’t until then Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell working in tandem with President Donald Trump literally converted the Court from a functioning judicial court to a shadow legislative body whose authority actually supersedes that of the Congress the Founders created. McConnell and Trump effectively hacked the highest court in the land. In doing so they solved the age-old conundrum of congressional gridlock.

This court will act legislatively and autocratically when congress cannot or will not with greater authority and no potential for recourse. This court is acting is a way that the Founders and the Constitution never intended to achieve objectives long recognized as the domain of the First Estate. The effect is a reordering of the way the Constitution functions.

In the years leading up to the enactment of the VRA Civil Rights leaders met with the President Lyndon B. Johnson many times. They always pressed for steps that would facilitate social progress. When LBJ asked what was “the most important” thing they needed the answer was simple, voting rights reform. Foremost among those Civil Rights leaders was Reverend, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

King succeeded in defeating the hated and unjust Jim Crow laws that were the underpinning of racial segregation, the very legal structure on which racial inequality in the United States relied. The revenge of the segregationists began with King’s assassination on 4 April 1968, 58 years ago this month. That vengeance of the segregationists was continued today by five rogue judicial actors assuming the role of legislators.

This must not stand, there must be an accounting.