The Voting Rights Act is often called the crown jewel of the civil rights movement, yet many Americans do not know why or how it was passed. Pictured, NAACP Field Director Charles White speaks on the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday, June 25, after the court limited use of a major part of the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965, in effect invalidating a key enforcement provision. Here are some key moments and characters in the voting rights saga.
Editor's note: Donna Brazile, a CNN contributor and a Democratic strategist, is vice chairwoman for voter registration and participation at the Democratic National Committee. She is a nationally syndicated columnist, an adjunct professor at Georgetown University and author of "Cooking With Grease: Stirring the Pot in America." She was manager for the Gore-Lieberman presidential campaign in 2000.
(CNN) -- In an earthshaking 1965 speech to Congress and to the nation, President Lyndon Johnson spoke directly to the sinister forces that had restricted black Americans' right to vote across the South -- laying out the goals of the Voting Rights Act in the form of a command to this shameful cabal.
"Open your polling places to all your people. Allow men and women to register and vote whatever the color of their skin. Extend the rights of citizenship to every citizen of this land," Johnson thundered. "There is no constitutional issue here. The command of the Constitution is plain." The speech stirred the country, moved the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. to tears and secured this essential law's passage.
Today, if President Barack Obama wants to save the Voting Rights Act following Tuesday's shameful Supreme Court ruling, then he faces an even bigger challenge than Johnson did: He's got to convince a much more hostile Congress that the act is worth saving.
Hanging in the balance is the very foundation of American civil rights law. On Tuesday, nearly 50 years after Johnson's historic speech, the five conservative members of the Supreme Court eviscerated the Voting Rights Act in a single stroke. Why? According to the majority opinion, apparently it's because the discriminatory anti-voter rules the act prohibits aren't as much of a problem as they were before the law was passed.
If you're trying to think up a way to illustrate how completely nuts that is, don't worry, because Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg already put it best in her dissent. Striking down this essential part of the act, Ginsburg wrote, "is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet."
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Of course, Johnson was right in 1965, and he's just as right today. These protections are vital and necessary. There is no right more sacrosanct to the very foundations of our nation than the right to vote, and threats to equal voting loom every time we turn a blind eye. Constant vigilance is required to safeguard it, and for half a century the Voting Rights Act was a watchful guardian. But now that Section 5's "pre-clearance" formula has been made irrelevant, it falls to Congress to fix it.
Don't expect the conservative-controlled House of Representatives to jump at the chance though. Just last year, during the 2012 election cycle, Republican elected officials in states across the country pushed deeply hostile voter ID laws that disproportionately limit minority voters. Sometimes, the Republicans were even explicit that the purpose of these laws was to put victories in the "R" column. And all that took place with a full and complete Voting Rights Act still on the books.
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Now it's up to Obama to make a new case for a new Voting Rights Act. Of course, there's nothing partisan about equality in the ballot box. The act's great virtue is that it barred discrimination no matter which way it was directed. It was an equal opportunity shield from injustice -- protecting you no matter who you voted for or what you looked like.
It is a crying shame that the Supreme Court left a key part of Johnson's legacy in tatters. But today, Obama -- and every fair-minded American -- should look to the spirit of Johnson and King and pass a new Voting Rights Act that will stand the test of time. We can't wait. Election Day is just around the corner.
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The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Donna Brazile.
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Three young civil rights workers were murdered in 1964 in Mississippi while trying to register black voters. The infamous murders showed that segregationists were willing to kill to keep African-Americans from voting.
John Lewis, a young activist who later became a congressman of Georgia, heads to a fateful encounter on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama during a 1965 march. Lewis was brutally assaulted by state troopers during the "Bloody Sunday" march that made voting rights a national issue.
Marchers during the 1965 voting rights campaign in Selma, Alabama gather for a rally on March 26, 1965, a few weeks after "Bloody Sunday." Black residents were beaten, fired from their jobs and imprisoned trying to vote.
Viola Liuzzo, a Detroit housewife, was murdered while participating in the voting rights campaign in Selma, Alabama, in 1965. Her death outraged the nation and helped spur passage of the Voting Rights Act.
President Lyndon Johnson, pictured here discussing the act with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1965, went on national television to call for passage of the Voting Rights Act. He ended his speech by saying, "And we shall overcome."
Rep. John Lewis speaks after bipartisan House and Senate officials met to voice support for reauthorizing the Voting Rights Act for an additional 25 years on May 2, 2006. From left, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, House Speaker Dennis Hastert, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and other officials listen during the media conference.
President George W. Bush signs reauthorization of the act on July 27, 2006. From left, Rep. John Conyers, D-Michigan, Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wisconsin, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-California, Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nevada, and Sen. Bill Frist, R-Tennessee, look on.
President Barack Obama marches with civil right veterans during a commemoration march in 2007.
A conservative judge called the Voting Rights Act a racial entitlement but supporters of the act say it is the crowning victory of the civil rights movement. Pictured, people gather for a post-march rally after crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge on the "Bloody Sunday" anniversary, March 4, 2012.
Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law Executive Director Barbara Arnwine speaks during a news conference to voice opposition to state photo ID voter laws with the Rev. Jesse Jackson and members of Congress at the U.S. Capitol July 13, 2011.
A supporter of the Voting Rights Act rallies in the South Carolina State House in Columbia on February 26, 2013, the day before oral hearings at the Supreme Court.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson, at the microphone, and the Rev. Al Sharpton, left, deliver remarks during a rally outside the U.S. Supreme Court on February 27, 2013, as the court prepared to hear oral arguments in Shelby County v. Holder, the legal challenge to Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.
Supporters of the Voting Rights Act listen to speakers discussing the rulings outside the U.S. Supreme Court building on Tuesday, June 25.
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