The VRA at 60: Our Democracy Belongs to Every Citizen

(WIB) – An untrue hierarchy of human value has long organized our experience as a nation. This false belief in human hierarchy promotes preferences in worthiness, including who gets access to education, housing, healthcare, wealth accumulation, and fundamental civil rights.

The right to vote, integral to democracy, was then weaponized as a tool to reinforce this hierarchy of human value. Those deemed worthy were given an unimpeded right to vote. Those deemed unworthy — at least by a white patriarchal power structure — were denied the right to vote.

The right to vote then was a sledgehammer used to cement power among a few, at the expense of everyone else — namely Black people, women, other people of color, and persons in poverty.

Black communities have always shown resilience in their f