Today, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) commemorates the 45th anniversary of the signing of the Voting Rights Act, a bill that remains a cornerstone feature of American democracy. The Act is widely considered one of the most successful and effective civil rights statutes ever passed by Congress and continues to play an important role in combating ongoing voting discrimination throughout our nation.

By The Editors
On June 3, the NAACP Legal Defense And Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF), released a report, Independent Redistricting Commissions: Reforming Redistricting Without Reversing Progress Toward Racial Equality, to provide an overview of IRCs and examine their potential impact on minority voting rights. The report also urges voters to be vigilant in monitoring any late efforts to change the rules that govern the way redistricting lines are drawn.

The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) has moved to intervene in a lawsuit filed by Shelby County, Alabama, which seeks to invalidate the federal preclearance provision of the Voting Rights Act known as Section 5. LDF seeks to intervene on behalf of African-American residents of Shelby County whose voting rights are directly impacted by this challenge.

By Vernon E. Jordan, Jr.
In New York State Thurgood Marshall Day –appropriately — also marks the anniversary of a great American milestone.

On Wednesday, April 28, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ordered rehearing in a case challenging Washington State’s racially discriminatory law that denies the vote to people with felony convictions. A panel of eleven judges will reconsider this important civil rights case.

By The Editors
Friday, March 5, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) marked the 45th anniversary of the “Bloody Sunday” march in Selma in the spirit the marchers of that day would have appreciated—by working with the citizens of Selma and other communities to ensure the voting rights won that day remain secure.

By The Editors
John Payton, speaking at one of the nation’s most historic black institutions of higher learning, takes on the challenging question – and assertion – President Obama’s election has inevitably raised: Does that mean the United States of America has become a “post-racial” society?

By Desiree Cooper
With many states considering closing their prisons in order to balance their budgets, it’s time to ratchet up the national conversation about what to do with a growing number of ex-felons, especially those who are sincerely trying to re-integrate into society

By The Editors
The effort of the Obama administration to restore the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division as an agent of the nation’s civil rights laws has apparently shifted into high gear.

By Elliot Morrison
“Today is a triumph for freedom as huge as any victory that has ever been won on any battlefield.”

President Lyndon Baines Johnson spoke those words on a sweltering August 6th in the Capitol Rotunda forty-four years ago, prior to signing one of the most momentous legislative acts in all of American history: the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Johnson declared that the Act’s purpose was to guarantee a right “which no American, true to our principles, can deny.”