Activists paid for the Voting Rights Act in blood. The supreme court has undermined it | Sophia Lin Lakin

I was a lead attorney in the Callais case. The court’s decision will silence the voices of communities of colorThe supreme court on Wednesday paved the way for racial discrimination in voting, 60 years after Martin Luther King Jr and thousands of other movement leaders bled, marched and mobilized for Congress to outlaw it. This is a break-glass outcome for what was already a severely weakened Voting Rights Act (VRA), and it will reshape the future of political representation at all levels of government, in Louisiana and beyond.Section 2 of the VRA has served as the country’s primary shield against racial vote dilution – prohibiting voting practices that leave minority voters with less opportunity than others to elect candidates of their choice, such as racially gerrymandered district maps.