Mississippi Voting Rights Act introduced on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

The bill, co-sponsored by Representative Zakiya Summers of Jackson and Senator Johnny DuPree of Hattiesburg, is meant to strengthen existing protections in the federal Voting Rights Act, while filling in gaps that have opened up over the years.

"For generations, many Mississippians were denied equal access to the ballot through discriminatory practices: those barriers didn't disappear on their own," said DuPree, who serves District 45. "They were removed because people of faith spoke out, civic leaders organized, lawmakers chose justice over exclusion."

"The history teaches us a clear lesson: voting rights must be protected, in every generation."

The measure is named after former Mississippi representative Robert G. Clark, Jr., the first African American representative elected to the state legislature after Reconstruction, serving from 1967 until 2003. He would be the only African American representative until 1975. 

His son, state Representative Bryant W. Clark, described being honored by the recognition for his father, while emphaszing the need to protect the work his father did for civil rights, particularly at the ballot box.

"My father would be horrified to know that in 2026, that the protection that he and so many other people, Fannie Lou Hamer, Aaron Henry, Medgar Evers fought for is being threatened," Clark said in an address to the crowd. "But my dad taught me one thing. He taught me when democracy is threatened, you don't give up: you fight harder."

Amir Badat, a voting rights attorney with Fair Fight Action, broke down some of the main points of the act. 

"It prohibits racial discrimination in the context of voting and redistricting," he said. "It creates a state level pre-clearance requirement where new election laws and practices can't be passed unless an independent state agency created by the act, called the Mississippi Voting Rights Commission determines that there's no discrimination going on."

The act would also include a database for elections information along with protections for disabled voters and those with limited English fluency. 

Some of the biggest challenges to the 1965 Voting Rights Act have come from U.S. Supreme Court decisions. Right now, two recent cases are of particular concern: a case from Louisiana currently before the Supreme Court, and one from Mississippi that's been appealed to the Supreme Court.

The two cases present specific challenges to Section Two of the VRA, which prohibits voting practices or procedures that discriminate based on race, color or belonging to a minority language group. 

At a poster-making party before the rally, members from a coalition of organizations gathered at the Mississippi Black Women's Roundtable office. 

For executive director Cassandra Welchlin, the issue of voting gets at the heart of what many voters head to the ballot box for and what she's heard from community members in touch with MBWR. 

"The vote is connected to your kitchen table: when we talk about wages, you need wages in order to pay your utility bills, to buy groceries, you needs wages to take care of child care," she said. "Water, gas, lights, rent: that is what the vote means."

"We gotta elect people to those seats that care about those things."