Historic Voting Rights Conference Set for July 25-26
Feature Story by civilrights.org staff - 7/8/2005
Elected officials, opinion makers, community leaders, and grassroots activists will gather in Washington later this month to discuss the role the Voting Rights Act has played and continues to play in transforming communities, including the importance of the Act's special provisions.The timing of the conference coincides with the 40th anniversary of the Act, widely considered to be one of the most successful civil rights laws in the nation's history.
The Act prohibits discrimination in voting based on race, and requires certain jurisdictions to provide bilingual assistance to language minority voters.
A bipartisan Congress has voted four times-- in 1970, 1975, 1982, and 1992-- to extend its key provisions. Key elements of the law, including the Act's federal pre-clearance and minority language provisions, are due to expire in 2007.
The conference, entitled "Past and Prologue: National Conference on the Voting Rights Act of 1965, July 25-26, 2005, Washington, DC," will begin on July 25 with a reception at the Library of Congress, hosted by Congressman John Lewis, where policymakers and activists who made the 1965 Act possible will be honored and recognized.
Judge Nathaniel R. Jones will deliver the keynote address on July 26.
The conference is sponsored by a broad array of non-partisan organizations, including the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR), the NAACP, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium, the National Congress of American Indians, the Native American Rights Fund, the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, People for the American Way, the Asian American Legal Defense Fund, the National Voting Rights Institute, and many others.
"At a time when our country has staked much of its international reputation on the ability to spread democracy and free elections to troubled regions across the globe, the importance of this conference cannot be overstated," said Wade Henderson, LCCR executive director.
