Sixty-one years after the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, survivors of those who died in the civil rights movement say recent Supreme Court decisions have invalidated sacrifices that built a national consensus on voting equality. The families, scattered across different states and generations, share a common bond: each lost a family member violently in the struggle for voting and civil rights.

The April ruling by the Supreme Court severely weakened a section of the law that had protected voting rights for minority communities. A 2013 decision authored by Chief Justice John Roberts was the first major step in rolling back the landmark legislation, which critics argued had become outdated as conditions for Black voters improved.

"My mother's blood is on that bill. We were always proud of that, and now it's gone," said Anthony Liuzzo, whose mother, Viola Liuzzo, died on an Alabama highway between Selma and Montgomery while driving civil rights marchers in 1965. Viola Liuzzo was 39 when she was shot and killed by Klansmen on March 25, 1965.

What the Left Is Saying

Survivors of those who perished or were injured in the civil rights movement expressed anger and sadness that a milestone political victory decades ago has been reversed. They point to the speed with which Republican-led state legislatures eliminated majority-Black congressional districts after the court's April ruling as evidence that discriminatory voting practices remain a threat.

Lisa McNair, whose older sister Denise was killed at age 11 in the Sept. 15, 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, said she is "physically sick" about recent court decisions and subsequent actions by legislatures. The explosion also killed Addie Mae Collins, Carole Robertson, and Cynthia Morris Wesley, all 14 years old.

"I am constantly working to pray my way through it, so I can get up and go to work in the morning and do what I need to do," McNair said. "But I just want to ask every white person I see, What more do you want? Why do you hate us so?"

Tamara Orange, daughter of James Orange, who worked with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference organizing voting rights protests in Alabama, said she felt relief that her father did not live to witness recent developments. "I am relieved for them because to me, it's as though the sacrifices that were made were done in vain," she said.

Cassie Schwerner, executive director of Morningside Center for Teaching Social Responsibility and niece of Michael Schwerner, who was killed alongside Andrew Goodman and James Chaney during Freedom Summer 1964, said recent court decisions brought "rage and a good deal of sadness — not for me and my family, but for this country."

What the Right Is Saying

Critics of the Voting Rights Act have long argued that times have changed significantly since 1965. Chief Justice John Roberts articulated this position in his 2013 Shelby County v. Holder decision, writing that conditions for minority voters had improved substantially and that the formula used to determine which jurisdictions required federal pre-clearance before changing voting laws was no longer justified.

Supporters of the court's recent rulings contend that advances in race relations, the availability of legal remedies through the Voting Rights Act's Section 2 provisions, and technological improvements in monitoring election changes have rendered the preclearance requirements unnecessary. They argue that all voters now enjoy protections under federal law without requiring special oversight for certain jurisdictions.

Republican-led state legislatures that moved quickly to adjust congressional district maps after the April ruling have argued that their redistricting efforts comply with existing legal requirements. These states maintain that courts should apply race-neutral principles and that Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act remains available to challenge any discriminatory practices.

What the Numbers Show

The 1965 Voting Rights Act passed with strong bipartisan support in Congress, with 328 votes in the House and 79 in the Senate. The legislation authorized federal oversight of election procedures in states and counties with histories of discriminatory voting practices.

In the weeks following the April Supreme Court ruling on the Voting Rights Act, at least three Republican-led Southern states announced plans to revise congressional district maps that had been drawn to include majority-Black districts. Legal experts noted these changes occurred within months of the decision.

Vernon Dahmer Sr., a NAACP president and civil rights leader in Mississippi, was killed on Jan. 10, 1966, after offering to pay the $2 poll tax for Black residents who wanted to register to vote. The amount represented substantial cost at a time when farmworker wages might total only $5 per day.

Three Klansmen were eventually convicted decades later for the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing that killed Denise McNair and three other girls in 1963. Federal convictions came years after state acquittals in several civil rights era cases, including those involving Viola Liuzzo's killers.

The Bottom Line

Survivors of civil rights era violence say they remain committed to continuing the fight for voting rights despite recent court decisions. Several families have indicated plans to advocate for legislative responses at the federal level and to promote voter turnout as a counterweight to what they describe as systematic efforts to restrict access to the ballot.

Congress could theoretically respond with new legislation addressing the specific provisions struck down by the Supreme Court, though any such effort would face significant procedural hurdles in the current political environment. Civil rights organizations have already announced litigation strategies relying on Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and other legal mechanisms.

Anthony Liuzzo said he remains proud his mother had the courage to travel to Selma "when others sat in their pretty little houses." Dennis Dahmer Sr., whose father died defending voting rights, offered a stark assessment: "We're living in a time when America has a lot of the same characteristics of the 1960s that I grew up in. People say, are we going back? Hell, we're already there."