Free Republic

Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson argues the framers of the 14th Amendment adopted it "in a race-conscious way," a position some legal experts say is subject to debate. Jackson, the first black woman on the Supreme Court, began her first two days on the nine-member bench by speaking more than any other justices , in addition to a full four-minute statement in which she said the 14th Amendment used "race-conscious" remedies to make freedmen equal to white citizens. The issue at hand involved a challenge to Alabama 's 2021 congressional district map, which a lower court held was a...

They have long been overrepresented in the military, serving and dying for a country that has not always celebrated their freedom or rewarded their sacrifice.Memorial Day is a sacred occasion when we pay tribute to all the military men and women who have died in service to the United States. It is also an observance that owes its creation to blacks. This tradition began when newly freed slaves decorated the grave sites of Civil War soldiers as a way to honor those who had fought for their freedom. But blacks were not just passive bystanders. Many of volunteered to...

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports: The Georgia Legislative Black Caucus filed a lawsuit Monday against the state of Georgia seeking to dissolve the city charters of Dunwoody, Sandy Springs, Johns Creek, Milton and Chattahoochee Hills. Further, the lawmakers, joined by civil rights leader the Rev. Joseph Lowery, aim to dash any hopes of a Milton County. The lawsuit, filed in a North Georgia U.S. District Court Monday, claims that the state circumvented the normal legislative process and set aside its own criteria when creating the “super-majority white ” cities within Fulton and DeKalb counties. The result, it argues, is to dilute...

Activists seeking to eliminate the Electoral College in favor of a popular vote to elect the president boast that their movement is almost one-fifth the way to its goal. Four states – Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland and New Jersey – which represent 50 of the 270 electoral votes needed to declare a presidential election winner, have committed to an agreement whereby they would grant their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote, a move that – if adopted by enough states – would reduce the Electoral College to irrelevancy. With most of the nation's states considering similar bills...

The debate over the Constitution's meaning takes a surprising turn; a pivotal gun-rights case Art Resource, NYThe nation's founders in 'The Signing of the Constitution,' a 1940 painting by Howard Chandler Christy. A debate is building over how to interpret the document. After the Supreme Court struck down the District of Columbia's handgun ban last June, gun-rights advocates trained their sights on similar restrictions in Chicago and Oak Park, Ill. Last month, the National Rifle Association received ammunition from an unlikely source: the Constitutional Accountability Center, a liberal litigation shop. In a brief filed with the federal appeals court in...

Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

"The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." It's time I clear up a major misconception over what the fifteenth amendment really is all about. When we speak of the fifteenth amendment we usually do so under the assumption that the amendment is an outright constitutional mandate granting citizens the right to vote. The fifteenth amendment is not a constitutional right to vote. This is because the right of suffrage was left with the...

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 (Public Law 89-10) outlawed the requirement that would-be voters in the United States take literacy tests to qualify to register to vote, and it provided for federal registration of voters -- instead of state or local voter registration which had often been denied to minority and poor voters -- in areas that had less than 50% of eligible voters registered. The act also provided for DOJ oversight to registration, and the Department's approval for any change in voting law in districts whose populations were at least 5% African-American. It was signed into law by...