The Voting Rights Act at 60: still the frontline for democracy

Decades after its passage, the revolutionary law continues to face threats and attempts to pervert its purpose

Facing images of violent white mobs defending racial segregation, the condemnation of the world and of its own citizens, Congress passed the Voting Rights Act, a law meant to end the hypocrisy of a democratic country that denied Black people the power of their vote.

Sixty years later, race remains at the center of American politics. Cases before the US supreme court, and a platoon of Texas legislators fleeing the state to prevent redistricting, demonstrate how the Voting Rights Act - and its erosion - remains on the frontline of the political battlefield.