Sixty years ago last week, the Voting Rights Act was signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson. It was a landmark piece of legislation, the product of years of struggle by civil rights leaders like The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., and here in South Carolina, by activists like my father, James Moore Sr.

The law would break the chokehold of Jim Crow on the South by reinforcing the right to vote that is guaranteed by the 15th amendment. It also greatly handicapped the ability of the states to change their voting rules and throw up additional barriers to Black suffrage.

Included in the law were restrictions on how congressional districts can be drawn, a powerful shield in protecting the Black vote that outlawed racial discrimination in the redistricting process. It was this provision that

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