The real history of our country is never a carefree walk-in-the-park read; but this is especially the case when the focus is upon how the various powers that be treated the people of color.
So why, we might ask, would we abandon our comfort zone and put ourselves through another round of this often painful and sometimes shameful story with Gloria Browne-Marshall’s, “THE VOTING RIGHTS WAR: the NAACP and the Ongoing Struggle for Justice”?
Actually, three reasons do come quickly to mind.
First: Achieving and maintaining fairness at the polling place lies at the very foundation of our form of government. The stakes are high — The legitimacy of our democracy rests upon it.
Second: The story, even with all its casualties and misfortunes, supports Martin Luther King Jr.’s claim that “the ark of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.“
And third: Our guide, our author, is a Constitutional scholar with an undying commitment to research and fact; but also a playwright with a storytellers ear and a heart for the human meanings beneath the events.
Now a Constitutional Law professor at John Jay College of the City University of New York, Browne-Marshall was once herself an NAACP civil rights lawyer. A previous book that she wrote, “Race, Law, and American Society: 1607 – Present,” traces the bigger picture of African Americans’ bondage under the law and how they continue to free themselves from those bonds. A frequent contributor to CNN on matters of race, she also is a playwright whose works have been staged in New York City.
Her new book concentrates on the disenfranchisement of African Americans and their fight for the right to vote. But it is also, in another sense, an homage to those who preceded her. Speaking of her time at the NAACP legal defense and education fund, she says: “[O]utside of long days, constant travel, and interoffice intrigues, I did not bear the great weight of those civil rights activists and lawyers who came before me. I often think of the sacrifices made by those young, idealistic activists who risked their lives the change the world.” (p.3)
It is with such simultaneously hard-nosed but sensitive prose that she takes us on the journey. Beginning with a user-friendly extensive timeline of the laws, the events and their consequences of the issue at hand, we are reminded of much that needs refreshing, and informed of many details that inevitably are new to us.
From there we jump right into the founding of the NAACP in the chapter “Born of Bloodshed. “It was precipitated by the riots in Springfield Illinois in 1908” … and a brief retelling of that story might give a sense, In a sort of metaphorical way, of most, if not all, of what is to follow.
“The riots begin with reports of a Negro raping a white woman. On August 15, 1908 the Illinois state journal reported, under the headline, “Dragged from her bed and outraged by a Negro “ that, “Frenzied Mob Sweeps City Wreaking Bloody Vengeance for Negro’s Heinous Crime” But Browne-Marshall tells us the real facts: “But the claims of rape were lies. No White woman had been raped by a Black man. Mabel Hallman, a married White woman, lied to cover up her affair with a married White man by accusing George Richardson, a Black man, of rape.” (p. 6)
But there was resistance. The moral conscience of a determined few who might be in a position to help had been re-kindled. Within two years the organization that was to become the NAACP emerged from the casualties, death, and destruction of the Springfield riots.
Moorfield Storey, A Boston blue blood white attorney with the heritage of anti-racist belief, “had taken on the challenge of navigating the advancement of Black people through treacherous territory with little money, an unpaid staff, and no legal arsenal, against entrenched opposition with power in every American institution and a penchant for murder with impunity” (p. 19)
With the tenor of the times and the mindset of the powers that be referred to above, we proceed on our journey. Browne-Marshall takes us through all of it; through the —
*The unbelievable: Grandfather clauses which was called that, “because if a Black man’s grandfather had not been eligible to vote in 1865, his descendants were not eligible to vote in 1915.” (p. 42)
*The glory years of the Warren court.
*The gory years of lynchings (including — to illustrate the depth of the terror —a burning at the stake where the remains were sold as souvenirs).
*The inevitable setbacks and occasional legal victories in the age of separate but equal.
*The politics and law of literacy tests, gerrymandering, all-white primaries, felony disenfranchisement and the endless creativity of how white majorities suppressed the voting rights of black minorities.
*The internal squabbles and the story of who would lead the NAACP — whites or blacks.
*The high rhetoric and lasting progress of the Johnson civil rights legislation.
*And the challenges of the future with a conservative court.
All in all, this is history made relevant. The book is appropriate for the general reader, for use in all history courses, or even to assist students of the law who are looking for an overview of 100 years of cases and context set forth in a coherent and understandable way.
In closing, Browne-Marshall is not afraid to switch hats from the historian to the civil rights attorney. She had begun her work with a quote from the 19th century Negro spiritual, “sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us.“ She ends with the words of voting rights activist Boynton Robinson, "For those who say they stand on my shoulders, I say get down and get to work."
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