Henry Louis Gates Jr.: When Candidates Pick Voters

The Voting Rights Act - signed into law on Aug. 6, 1965 - was a high point of the civil rights era. In 1965, there were 5 black members of Congress; today there are 39. No single piece of legislation since the 14th Amendment has had such a measurable and dramatic effect on the political fortunes of black Americans. What's not so clear is whether the effect is now mainly a positive one.In 1965, in the infamous "Bloody Sunday" police riot on Pettus Bridge in Selma, a young civil rights leader named John Lewis risked his life for the cause of black enfranchisement. Yet two years ago, the same John Lewis, now a congressman from Georgia, found himself accused by John Ashcroft's Justice Department of violating the Voting Rights Act. [more ]