Tomorrow marks the 50th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act. Just a week after signing the bill that created Medicare, on August 6, 1965, President Lyndon Johnson signed a law that made it illegal for local jurisdictions to deny the right to vote to African Americans.
This morning, a conversation about the history of the Voting Rights Act, and the future of voting rights, as we celebrate this historic milestone, and assess the consequences of the 2013 Supreme Court decision that struck down one of its central tenets.
Two scholars from Baltimore who have studied and written about these issues extensively join host Tom Hall in the studio. Taylor Branch is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of the iconic history of the Civil Rights movement, America in the King Years. F. Michael Higginbotham is the Dean Joseph Curtis Professor of Law and the former Interim Dean at the University of Baltimore School of Law.
And on Thursday, August 6 at 5:30pm, on the 50th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, former prisoners, their families and their allies will march, calling on the Maryland General Assembly to override Governor Larry Hogan's veto of legislation expanding voting rights to all citizens on release from prison. It will take place at McKeldin Square on Pratt and Light Streets in Baltimore.
