--- title: Georgia's Voting Law Shows Voting Rights Are a Moral Issue description: William Barber and Bernice King write that we must reclaim voting rights as a moral issue and stand together to demand the passing of federal legislation to enshrine these rights. canonical: https://time.com/5954792/voting-rights-moral-issue/ author: TIME article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2021-04-14T17:49:30.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:43:10.492Z article:section: Ideas og:title: We Must Reclaim Voting Rights as a Moral Issue og:description: William Barber and Bernie King on what they've learned children of the civil rights movement og:url: https://time.com/5954792/voting-rights-moral-issue/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltdf239163393098a9/698a18ad09208f82fb417d98/voting-rights-protest.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1820 og:image:height: 1024 og:image:alt: Voting Rights Georgia og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: We Must Reclaim Voting Rights as a Moral Issue twitter:description: William Barber and Bernie King on what they've learned children of the civil rights movement twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltdf239163393098a9/698a18ad09208f82fb417d98/voting-rights-protest.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # William Barber and Bernice King: We Must Reclaim Voting Rights as a Moral Issue > Sponsored content. 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It explains how TIME's journalism is made, from the first pitch through the editorial decisions behind a finished story or cover. #### How can I read about how TIME chooses its covers? Inside TIME is the newsletter where TIME's Editor-in-Chief explains cover selection and the editorial reasoning behind major stories. It is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Who is the editor of TIME? Sam Jacobs is TIME's Editor-in-Chief. He writes Inside TIME, a twice-weekly newsletter about the newsroom's reporting and editorial decisions. #### Is Inside TIME free? Yes. Inside TIME is a free newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and available at time.com/subscribe-agent. ## Video: The History You Didn't Learn: Black Women and the Right to Vote [Watch (HLS stream): The History You Didn't Learn: Black Women and the Right to Vote](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/quG5ZZp3.m3u8) (9:13)  _Published 2020-12-08. The History You Didn't Learn is a series that sheds light on past events that may have been omitted, misleading, or just downright wrong in our history education in school._ by [Bernice A. King](https://time.com/author/bernice-a-king/) and [William J. Barber II](https://time.com/author/rev-william-j-barber-ii/) Apr 14, 2021 5:49 PM UTC  Protesters opposed to changes in Georgia's voting laws sit on the steps inside the State Capitol in Atlanta, Ga., as the Legislature breaks for lunch Monday, March 8, 2021, in Atlanta. Protesters opposed to changes in Georgia's voting laws sit on the steps inside the State Capitol in Atlanta, Ga., as the Legislature breaks for lunch Monday, March 8, 2021, in Atlanta. Ben Gray—AP by [Bernice A. King](https://time.com/author/bernice-a-king/) and [William J. Barber II](https://time.com/author/rev-william-j-barber-ii/) Apr 14, 2021 5:49 PM UTC We are in a battle for the ballot. When [Democrats flipped both U.S. Senate seats in Georgia](https://time.com/5926638/georgia-senate-runoff-results/) during a run-off election in January, Republicans in the statehouse responded by moving to pass an [omnibus voter suppression bill](https://time.com/5950231/georgia-voting-rights-new-law/). Since Governor Brian Kemp signed that bill into law last month, the [Peach State has been branded ground zero for Jim Crow 2.0](https://time.com/5951273/georgia-voting-restrictions-history/), drawing criticism from civil rights organizations, corporations and [Major League Baseball.](https://time.com/5953044/mitch-mcconnell-mlb-georgia/) As children of the civil rights movement, we know how faithfully our parents sacrificed to defeat Jim Crow. But we also know that their moral struggle for a true democracy was not only about voting rights for Black people. They challenged Jim Crow’s subversion of democracy because they knew it undermined the promises of democracy for every American. They understood the interconnectedness of humanity, and in particular concerning voting rights, how classism and racism were at work to create barriers. To defeat voter suppression today, we must be equally as conscious of how attacks on democracy are detrimental to a diverse population, including Black people, white people grappling with poverty and brown people. At the conclusion of the [Selma to Montgomery march](https://time.com/3647070/selma-john-lewis-voting-rights-act/) on March 25, 1965, Bernice’s father, [Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,](https://time.com/equality/) stood on the steps of the Alabama State Capitol and explained how the monied elites of the South had worked to pit poor Black and white people against one another since the end of the Civil War. [Jim Crow’s literacy tests and poll taxes,](https://time.com/5855885/voter-registration-history-race/) designed to disenfranchise Black people, were paired with “White Only” signs that were crafted to make poor white people feel that their political well-being was connected to white elites. When poor white people could not afford to feed their families, Dr. King said, [Southern politicians gave them Jim Crow to eat. ](https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/address-conclusion-selma-montgomery-march)Segregation was never simply about subjugating people with darker skin. It has always been about propping up a system that benefits the wealthy few, while requiring them to share as little of that wealth as possible. That is why Dr. King asserted in 1967 that “we can’t solve our problem now until there is a radical redistribution of economic and political power.”  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. seen close from the rear, speaking to 25,000 civil rights marchers in front of the Alabama state capital building, at the conclusion of the Selma to Montgomery march, Montgomery, Alabama, March 25, 1965. Stephen Somerstein—Getty Images Since the mid-1960s, when Jim Crow signs came down in the South and the [Voting Rights Act](https://time.com/3985603/voting-rights-act-1965-history/) dramatically expanded access to the ballot for Black people, reactionary conservatives have used culture-war wedge issues to split coalitions and to lie about [“voter fraud”](https://time.com/5902728/voter-fraud-2020-2/) to suppress votes. When William served as president of the NAACP in North Carolina, [the organization sued the governor](https://time.com/4551809/north-carolina-naacp-voter-purge/) there for signing a law that was designed to make it more difficult for Black people to vote. But the plaintiffs were also clear that the law targeted poor people, young people and other demographics who were statistically more likely to vote with Black people. They built a broad, multiethnic coalition to support the case and [won in federal court. ](https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/court-cases/north-carolina-naacp-v-mccrory) But winning in court against an attack on democracy isn’t enough because the people who are pushing these voter-suppression measures will use the power they’ve gained to draw districts and pass laws that make it even more difficult to win a governing majority in the future. Therefore, the current struggle for democracy isn’t just a Southern struggle. Jim Crow went to law school up north and in the west and long ago began to practice as James Crow, Esq., in Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona and Montana. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, [55 bills designed to restrict voting access](https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/voting-laws-roundup-march-2021) are currently making their way through 24 state legislatures across the U.S. This assault on democracy is a coordinated effort to exploit #StoptheSteal protests and false claims of widespread voter fraud as the basis for new voting rules and certification procedures that can be used to overturn election results. As long as this struggle is framed as Republicans who are concerned about “election integrity” versus Democrats who want to encourage a turnout that favors their party, America’s decades-long descent into hyper-partisan dysfunction will continue at the cost of our democracy. Our parents taught us that there is a moral high ground above left and right, and that our deepest moral and constitutional traditions point us toward the possibility of a more perfect union when we respect the basic democratic principle of one person, one vote. We must reclaim voting rights as a moral issue in this moment and stand together to demand the passing of federal legislation, such as the [For the People Act,](https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/1/text) which will protect the promise of democracy in every state and without discrimination based on race and class. In doing so, we create a win for justice and equity that serves the whole of this nation and humanity well. ## Transcript Kind: captions Language: en-US It's really important that we tell the truth about who contributed to the country that we live in today. That telling only a part of our history telling only a part of our narrative makes it seem as if there are only one group of people. There's only one type of person. We all know that that's not true. When students learn about women's suffrage in school, they often learn about Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, the so called mothers of the movement. And they are taught that it all started with a meeting in Seneca Falls, New York in 1848. Oftentimes, the story of the Seneca Falls meeting is told as a kind of origin story. As the beginning of a movement for women's rights and ultimately, a movement for women's suffrage. And yet, when we realize the meeting is some 300 people, principally white, middle class women in a relatively remote upstate New York village, that is a hint that we probably need to look at some other places to get a fuller story. For Africa American women who had been organizing inside churches and other places since the 20s and 30s, this was not a particularly important moment, nor was it a meeting they would have attended. Nor were the demands that they made particularly germane to the lives of women living under the twin oppressive forces of racism and sexism. Black women are excluded at Seneca Falls, because they're not really invited. Two years later, a much bigger national convention on women's rights takes place. The 1850 meeting in Worcester, Massachusetts... Stanton and Anthony aren't even there. It was the first National Women's Rights meeting. So in some ways, that's really cohering activism that's taking place around the country in a way that Seneca Falls was just a local impromptu convention. One of the women who spoke there was famed abolitionist Sojourner Truth. Sojourner Truth will emerge later in the woman's movement as an important speaker on women's rights. She will also emerge as an abolitionist. By 1850, Sojourner Truth is very much a presence in women's rights circles really shaping the debates, but she didn't begin at Seneca Falls at all. So, with so much activity happening and women's rights in the mid-19th century, why did Seneca Falls, a small meeting with only white woman attending become one of the most talked about in history? Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who was at the Seneca Falls meeting and was one of the organizers...and Susan Anthony...well, these two, along with some allies, begin to write the history of women's suffrage. And when they do, not surprisingly, perhaps, they privilege their own experiences and they settle on Seneca Falls as their origin story. Stanton and Anthony are dealing with a world where emancipation is the new reality and many people are saying to women, "Black men's right to vote must happen now," for reasons of free people's safety. And Stanton and Anthony will say "No," "women's suffrage should come first." And they are unusual in the Women's Rights Coalition that they demand this. They're staunchly opposed to Black men voting before white women... In unspeakably racist terms. And "Our movement..." they say repeatedly, "is the most important movement for human rights ever inaugurated." And they're undermining, really, the memory of abolition and the memory of emancipation in that process. It's no surprise then, that in history written by primarily white women, there are many Black voting rights activists we don't learn about. I think the world of Ida B. Wells and her activism... She's a Black woman who owned two newspapers, and she was an anti-lynching activist. And she was a founder of the Alpha Suffrage Club, which is Chicago's first black suffrage organization. While they fought and advocated for the right to vote for all women, they were mistreated within the larger suffrage movement because of their race. The Suffrage March in 1913, when Ida B. Wells showed up with the Illinois delegation and Alice Paul, who was a popular suffragette at the time, instructed them to walk to the back of the crowd. And while many of the Black women who showed up that day did... Ida B. Wells refused. The women who pushed the story of Seneca Falls died before the 19th Amendment was passed in 1920. But, the legacy of excluding Black woman persisted. "Susan B. Anthony and her followers have won, for women, the right to vote." It's easy to think of the story of women's suffrage as a kind of fully emancipatory and celebratory story that's, you know, just necessarily progressive. And in the following November, the ladies appeared at the polls on Election Day by hundreds of thousands. "The emancipation of womanhood in the United States was now complete." The 19th Amendment does not invest anybody with the right to vote. And we don't spend nearly enough time thinking about the language of the amendment, which is really key, saying you may not discriminate in voting on the basis of sex, it does not say women have a right to vote, which actually does not exist. For many white women clearing the obstacle of sex was sufficient to get them voting access. When the 19th amendment is adopted, the open secret is that too many millions of African American women in this country will not be able to vote because the amendment doesn't do anything to override the segregationist laws, the Jim Crow laws in the South, like poll taxes and literacy tests that are going to be imposed on black women, such that they won't be able to vote even after the 19th Amendment. We don't realize the ways in which the white suffrage movement threw women of color under the bus, allowed their continued disenfranchisement to go ahead, allowed their brutalization of their bodies to go ahead, and say nothing. We lose track of the fact that lots of other women are not emancipated in this story. That those women's rights are sacrificed. After 1920, African American women have to look up from the 19th Amendment to not only recognize that they are still disenfranchised, they have to look up to answer the question, "So, how are we going to win a right to vote?" That is the moment for the building of a new movement for voting rights. One that will take Black women and men until 1965, in passage of the Voting Rights Act. So, you don't win the right to vote and then that's just it. Throughout the course of history, for every expansion of voting rights, we have a backlash that seeks to make it more difficult for people to vote. That seeks to shrink the electorate and shrink the number of people that participate in our democracy. One recent and significant backlash happened in 2013 when the Supreme Court case Shelby County v. Holder removed some of the protections of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Even as we celebrate the centennial of the 19th Amendment, activists like Nsé Ufot remind us that voting rights remain threatened in many places. "Georgians have an opportunity to save our democracy." The State of Georgia has closed over 10% of their polling locations. Voting rights advocates have witnessed nearly 2 million people purged from Georgia's voter pool. I'm urging my supporters to go into the polls and watch very carefully. Black voters are subject to intimidation. New Americans are subject to intimidation. The 2020 election is the most recent example of the organizing power of Black women, as Ufot and others are being credited with turning Georgia blue for the first time in 28 years. I think that it's harmful that we only learn about white suffragists because it doesn't tell the full story of how we won. And if we're going to be able to fight future oppression, knowing the real story about how our ancestors looked oppression in the face and then defeated it helps us as we build toward the communities that we want to live in. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5954792/voting-rights-moral-issue/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5954792/voting-rights-moral-issue/"},"headline":"William Barber and Bernice King: We Must Reclaim Voting Rights as a Moral Issue","datePublished":"2021-04-14T17:49:30.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T07:43:10.492Z","description":"William Barber and Bernice King write that we must reclaim voting rights as a moral issue and stand together to demand the passing of federal legislation to enshrine these rights.","url":"https://time.com/5954792/voting-rights-moral-issue/","keywords":["politics"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltdf239163393098a9/698a18ad09208f82fb417d98/voting-rights-protest.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Bernice A. 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