Part One: James Rivers Remembers Rise & Fall of Voting Rights Act

By Leonard E.  Colvin
Chief Reporter Emeritus
New Journal and Guide

Since it was signed in August of 1965, efforts have existed to weaken the Voting Rights Act (VRA), enacted to remedy decades of racial discrimination at the polls.

Today, supporters of the VRA like James Rivers of Norfolk believe the conservatives have achieved their goals, led by the current U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, an arch-opponent of the VRA.

The court has issued four key rulings that have weakened the VRA, beginning in 2013 when it struck down Section 5 of the VRA. Section 5 required states with a history of imposing Jim Crow-era voting laws, including Virginia, to gain Department of Justice (DOJ) clearance before changing their voting laws. This was to ensure they did not discriminate against Black voters.

In 2020, the court limited the federal ability to enforce equal voting rights protections.

Following up on a 2024 ruling, last April, the court gutted a VRA provision that prohibited voting laws that made it easier to prove that voting laws dilute minority voting and create minority-majority voting districts.

Today many southern states are busy dismantling minority-majority Congressional districts and reducing the number of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC).

Rivers and others who recall the era before the VRA was enacted, and the fight to remove the barriers to vote are appalled at this reversal of political fortunes for Black Americans.

When James L. Rivers graduated from Norfolk’s  Booker T. Washington High School in 1959,  thanks to the Black Press and  civics classes, he was aware of Jim Crow segregation.

He enrolled at Norfolk Division of Virginia State University (now Norfolk State University).  He majored in Chemistry and became a member of the Norfolk NAACP Branch Youth Council.

The Civil Rights Movement was underway and thanks to the Journal and Guide and other news sources, he  knew of the death of Emmitt Till, the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the fight over the desegregation of public schools in Little Rock, Arkansas, and Norfolk,  and other efforts to end segregation in America.

He recalled the organizing actions and campaigns in Norfolk of churches and civic groups like the Concerned Citizens for voter education and registration and the urging of Black people to pay their poll tax to vote.

Starting on February 1, 1960, student sit-ins at department stores were launched in Greensboro, North Carolina.

Rivers recalls he and fellow students locally were trained for similar non-violent demonstrations before that date. But overcautious parents, church and NAACP leaders  “held us back,” from undertaking the first sit-ins.

Instead, Rivers recalled that four North Carolina A&T students were credited with  being the “first” to write that important chapter in Black history..

“The idea of me being on the  frontline, demonstrating, scared the  beJesus out  of my parents. They were reluctant to let me participate,” recalled Rivers. “But I convinced them I would be careful. We were being prepared by the NAACP. It actually came in handy the first day.”

Rivers recalled, “some old gray-haired White woman spat in my face.”

“Things could have gotten out of hand quickly. But they whisked us back to the campus to regroup,” Rivers recalled.  “We continued the sit-ins despite that episode, and we were successful.”

From 1961 to 1965, Rivers and many of his fellow students, vowed to continue their activism even after college,  being inspired by some  memorable national events that were occurring.

In 1963, Birmingham saw the bombing of the Sixteenth  Street Church, where four little girls were killed, and dogs were unleashed on student demonstrators.

The same  year, in  Mississippi,  during the spring, NAACP field operative Medgar Evers in Mississippi was shot to death.  In the fall, President John F. Kennedy was killed after outmaneuvering Alabama Governor George Wallace, who fought against the desegregation of the University of Alabama.

A year  before, James Meredith attempted unsuccessfully to enroll at  the University of Mississippi.

In Hampton Roads, some signs of racial progress in voting were beginning. For example, Moses A. Riddick, a Black civic activist, was elected to the Nansemond County Board of Commissioners in 1963.  

Still, crosses were being burned in the yards of Blacks seeking to move into white neighborhoods, and Norfolk and other cities continued to resist compliance with the Brown Decision to integrate public schools.

In March 1965, the “Bloody Sunday” incident occurred when Blacks tried to march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, to protest Jim Crow voting barriers.

At the same time, Rivers recalled reading about a new and stronger voting rights law slowly moving through the U.S. Congress.

The NAACP Student Council members were introduced to Mrs. Evelyn Butts, a housewife and seamstress turned political and civic activist. She founded the activist group in Norfolk called  the Concerned Citizens.

The organization’s   “Golden Rod Ballot” was the endorsing guide that Black voters used to support progressive politicians at the polls.

“She  was a bombastic leader,” recalled Rivers. She was about “getting Black people out to vote, despite the poll tax and other barriers.”

After graduating from college in the spring of 1965, Rivers landed a job with the Norfolk Domestic Court.

In August of 1965, the Voting Rights Act was passed.

Mrs. Butts loaned her name to a suit challenging the poll tax and won.  

Rivers said those advances were byproducts of the Civil Rights Movement and a fitting college graduation gift to him and his fellow activist-students.

“The passage of the Voting Rights Act was huge. I recall at New Calvary, where civil rights meetings were held, people were jubilant when the VRA was passed and signed,” he said. “In 1968, the floodgates were opened, and Blacks were elected to office for the first time since Reconstruction. All of the hard work and sacrifice had paid off.”

In 1968, Rivers set his sights on a career away from Hampton Roads in the military. He enlisted in the Navy initially, then converted to the officer corps and entered flight school.

Rivers said the Vietnam conflict-era military was recruiting and promoting Black officers like him.

But instead of flying among the clouds, he opted to drive ships across the seas as a line officer.

He left service in 1976, returned home, and acquired employment with the city of Portsmouth. He also enlisted in the  ranks of Mrs. Butts’ organization and other civic interests.

Rivers, now 85 and still busy civically,  said he is  proud of witnessing that crucial chapter in Black political and advancement in the 1960s and 70s.

“But today, I am totally disheartened with the terrible policies promoted by the Supreme Courts and current administration. They are eroding those advances, including the Voting Rights Act,” Rivers said. 

“They are setting us back    and throwing out all of the advances with the bathwater.  It’s a shame, considering all of the hard work and sacrifices  of our ancestors over the past 250 years.”

Next:  Former Portsmouth Councilman and Judge Archie Elliott. He was one of the last of the early Black politicians who experienced the Civil Rights Movement and the VRA’s passage.