Alabama ignores the law again. And the passing of an American hero, Catherine Burks-Brooks.
Catherine Burks-Brooks is not a name you will read in high school history books.
Not here in Illinois either.
But there are few Americans who were braver or more willing to take greater risks in fighting for freedom and democracy than Ms Burks-Brooks.
Catherine Burks-Brooks was a Freedom Rider who put her life on the line in challenging Jim Crow.
Catherine Burks-Brooks died on July 3rd in Birmingham, Alabama at the age of 83.
As her obituary in the NY Times points out, by the time she boarded a bus in Washington DC to New Orleans, it had been 16 years since the Supreme Court had ruled that segregation in interstate travel violated the law.
However, segregated interstate travel through the South continued.
Southern states simply ignored the Supreme Court and the law.
In order to preserve Jim Crow they continue to ignore the law and the Supreme Court even now.
Alabama on Friday refused to create a second majority-Black congressional district, a move that defies a recent order from the U.S. Supreme Court to give Black voters a greater voice and trigger a renewed battle over the state’s political map.
In Alabama lawmakers in the Republican-dominated House and Senate challenged the courts and passed a plan that would only increase the percentage of Black voters from about 31% to 40% in the state’s 2nd District.
The move was intentional in order to keep Black representation in the Alabama congressional delegation to just one seat.
Rep. Terri Sewell, Alabama’s only Black member of Congress and the delegation’s only Democrat, said on Friday that Republicans “shamelessly” ignored the U.S. Supreme Court.
“The Supreme Court was very clear. The Alabama State Legislature must draw two majority-minority districts to ensure that Alabama’s African American voters are fairly represented in Congress,” Sewell said in a statement on Friday.
“Today, the State of Alabama has shamelessly chosen to ignore the Supreme Court. The map advanced by the state legislature includes only one majority-minority district and a second district where Black voters make up only 39.9 percent of the voting age population.
“This map does not comply with the Supreme Court’s order and is an insult to Black voters across our state.
State lawmakers faced a deadline to adopt new district lines after the Supreme Court in June upheld a three-judge panel’s finding that the current state map — with one majority-Black district out of seven in a state that is 27% Black — violates the federal Voting Rights Act.
Republicans hold just the slimmest of majorities in the Congressional House.