The Spirit of Selma Today Is about Police, Jobs and Training, not Voting Rights

Attorney General Eric Holder said Friday that he is "prepared" to dismantle the Ferguson, Missouri, police department to prevent practices the Justice Department said violated the rights of black citizens : "We are prepared to use all the powers that we have, all the power that we have, to ensure that the situation changes there. That means everything from working with them to coming up with an entirely new structure." Concerning the possibility of dismantling the police force, Holder said : "If that's what's necessary, we're prepared to do that." Attorney General Holder's comments came after the Justice Department released a lengthy report on Wednesday accusing the Ferguson police department of systematic racial bias. The DOJ launched its investigation into the force after last summer's killing of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown by a white police officer, Darren Wilson. The report found that police officers disproportionately stopped, arrested and cited black people for a variety of crimes and used excessive force against black residents. Investigators also found emails containing racist jokes written by police and court officials. On Friday, city officials  said  that two officers had resigned and a clerk in the court system had been fired over the messages. In a separate investigation, the Justice Department decided not to file civil rights charges against Wilson. When they released the report, Justice officials said they would work with Ferguson to implement their recommendations. But that does not preclude them taking more severe action down the road, like suing the city or dismantling the police department. Most of the work will undoubtedly come after Holder leaves the DOJ. The woman nominated to be his successor, Loretta Lynch, is waiting to be confirmed by the full Senate after being approved by the Senate Judiciary Committe. ~~~~~ In his Selma speech on Saturday, President Obama spoke about Ferguson and the DOJ report. "Just this week, I was asked whether I thought the Department of Justice’s Ferguson report shows that, with respect to race, little has changed in this country. I understand the question, for the report’s narrative was woefully familiar. It evoked the kind of abuse and disregard for citizens that spawned the Civil Rights Movement. But I rejected the notion that nothing’s changed. What happened in Ferguson may not be unique, but it’s no longer endemic, or sanctioned by law and custom; and before the Civil Rights Movement, it most surely was. We do a disservice to the cause of justice by intimating that bias and discrimination are immutable, or that racial division is inherent to America. If you think nothing’s changed in the past fifty years, ask somebody who lived through the Selma or Chicago or L.A. of the Fifties." ~~~~~ In the same speech, the President urged a renewal of the portion of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that was ruled unconstitutional as applied today because the problem it addressed no longer exists. In the Voting Rights Act, Section 4(b) contains a "coverage formula" that determines which states and local governments may be subjected to the Act's special pre-clearance provision. Congress intended for the coverage formula to encompass the most pervasively discriminatory jurisdictions -- basically the Deep South and Texas. A jurisdiction is covered by the coverage formula if it deliberately through "tests or devices" tries to restrict the opportunity to register and vote. In 2013, in Shelby County v. Holder, the Supreme Court declared the coverage formula unconstitutional because the criteria used to create the formula were outdated and thus violated principles of equal state sovereignty and federalism. The other special provisions that are dependent on the coverage formula, such as the Section 5 pre-clearance requirement, remain valid law. Pre-clearance requires any state that is subject to the coverage formula to receive an okay from the US Justice Department before it can change any part of its election law. However, without a valid coverage formula, these provisions are unenforceable. The Supreme Court cited the free access to voter registration by black and other minority Americans and their very high voting percentages in the two Obama presidential elections as one piece of evidence that the coverage formula is out-moded. ~~~~~ Dear readers, it was deeply felt by civil rights activists led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. that black Americans, who were systematically excluded from voting, especially in the South, could not benefit from their American citizenship until they could vote. After the March 1965 Selma marches and attacks, President Lyndon B. Johnson led Congress in passing the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Its acceptance was monitored by the US Justice Department. Black Americans registered and voted. There is no longer the barrier that led to the enactment of the Voting Rights Act. And if a locality or state discriminates in voter rights, the DOJ is still empowered to act. There is no need for a renewal of the coverage formula. But, confidence in Dr. King's vision and in the federal government - and in the traditional centerpiece of the civil rights movement - makes it hard to let go of the Voting Rights Act. This is too bad, because it does not reflect what black and other American minorities need today. Civil rights leaders should be marching and lobbying for jobs and job training, for education that reaches unemployed and badly educated black and other minority youngsters whose communities are too poor to provide it. They should be marching and lobbying to lower the number of young single mothers. They should seek success not in the number and level of welfare programs but in moving children and single parents and unemployed youth into training and jobs that give them access to the American Dream of a home and a paycheck and a productive future. The black American community has the power to change its condition -- as those courageous marchers of the 1960s changed their condition. But they cannot do it by demanding a right they already have won. It is time to move on to the next chapter of the civil rights movement. And political leaders do black Americans no favor by catering to their past -- it is time for the future. The 50th anniversary celebration of the Selma march provides the perfect opportunity to come together to formulate the next campaign. In their view of what needs attention, Attorney General Holder is right to focus on police-community relation problems...President Obama should follow Holder and not look backward to a voting problem already solved. (Want to share a thought? Email casey.popshots@yahoo.com)