Jim Crow Riding High: The Latest Assaults on African American Voting Rights

The aftermath of the shooting of Trayvon Martin raises serious issues about a possible double standard between the enforcement of civil rights for African-Americans and white Americans. This paper discusses two key voting rights – hence, civil rights - enforcement issues, voter suppression and disenfranchisement. While the 1965 Voting Rights Act guarantees the right to vote to all qualified Americans, there is substantial evidence that this right is often denied minorities. It has included strenuous efforts to suppress the black vote. How extensive is this effort, and what effect did suppression have on recent elections, including the Presidential election of 2012? Legislative districting can create “functional disenfranchisement” for African-Americans, by which ostensibly they retain the right to vote, but the meaning and instrumentality of that vote is rendered null and void. To what extent did the 2010 round of redistricting in Florida and other states promote functional disenfranchisement of African-Americans, the effect of which could be to minimize their voice in and impact on electoral politics