Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/20pdf/19-1257_g204.pdf
Page Number: 49.0

Cite as:  594 U. S. ____ (2021) 

5 

KAGAN, J., dissenting 

much of the country.”  Foner, The Strange Career of the Re-
construction  Amendments,  108  Yale  L. J.  2003,  2007 
(1999).    African  Americans  daring  to  go  to  the  polls  often 
“met with coordinated  intimidation  and  violence.”  North-
west  Austin  Municipal  Util.  Dist.  No.  One  v.  Holder,  557 
U. S. 193, 218–219 (2009) (THOMAS, J., concurring in judg-
ment in part and dissenting in part).  And almost immedi-
ately,  legislators  discovered  that  bloodless  actions  could 
also suffice to limit the electorate to white citizens.  Many 
States,  especially  in  the  South,  suppressed  the  black  vote 
through  a  dizzying  array  of  methods:  literacy  tests,  poll 
taxes,  registration  requirements,  and  property  qualifica-
tions.  See Katzenbach, 383 U. S., at 310–312.  Most of those 
laws,  though  facially  neutral,  gave  enough  discretion  to 
election officials to prevent significant effects on poor or un-
educated whites.  The idea, as one Virginia representative 
put it, was “to disfranchise every negro that [he] could dis-
franchise,” and “as few white people as possible.”  Keyssar 
113.    Decade  after  decade  after  decade,  election  rules 
blocked African Americans—and in some States, Hispanics 
and Native Americans too—from making use of the ballot.  
See Oregon v. Mitchell, 400 U. S. 112, 132 (1970) (opinion 
of Black, J.) (discussing treatment of non-black groups).  By 
1965, only 27% of black Georgians, 19% of black Alabami-
ans, and 7%—yes, 7%—of black Mississippians were regis-
tered  to  vote.    See  C.  Bullock,  R.  Gaddie,  &  J.  Wert,  The 
Rise and Fall of the Voting Rights Act 23 (2016). 
  The  civil  rights  movement,  and  the  events  of  a  single 
Bloody Sunday, created pressure for change.  Selma was the 
heart of an Alabama county whose 15,000 black citizens in-
cluded, in 1961, only 156 on the voting rolls.  See D. Garrow, 
Protest at Selma 31 (1978).  In the first days of 1965, the 
city became the epicenter of demonstrations meant to force 
Southern election officials to register African American vot-
ers.    As  weeks  went  by  without  results,  organizers  an-
nounced a march from Selma to Birmingham.  On March 7,