Relatives of three civil rights-era activists killed in the 1960s said they were dismayed by the Supreme Court’s April 29 ruling in Louisiana v. Callais, a 6–3 decision that struck down Louisiana’s congressional map and sharply narrowed how Section 2 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act can be used in redistricting challenges. They urged Americans to respond by voting and supporting efforts to strengthen federal voting protections.
Family members of civil rights workers killed during the movement in the 1960s expressed frustration with the Supreme Court’s decision in Louisiana v. Callais, handed down on April 29, 2026.
In that case, the Court, by a 6–3 vote, left in place a lower-court ruling that blocked Louisiana from using a congressional map that created a second majority-Black district, concluding the map amounted to an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. In the majority opinion, the Court also interpreted Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act in a way critics say makes it far harder for plaintiffs to win vote-dilution claims in redistricting cases.
Anthony Liuzzo, a son of Viola Liuzzo, pointed to his mother’s murder in Alabama in March 1965 after she went to support the Selma-to-Montgomery voting rights marches. He said the Court’s ruling undercut safeguards that activists’ sacrifices helped secure, and he urged eligible voters to keep turning out at the polls.
Dennis Dahmer, a son of Mississippi NAACP leader Vernon Dahmer, whose home was attacked by Ku Klux Klan members in January 1966 and who died from injuries sustained in the firebombing, described the decision as part of a long-running effort to weaken the Voting Rights Act. He also argued that low turnout has enabled decades of erosion in voting protections.
David Goodman, brother of Andrew Goodman—one of three voting-rights workers murdered in Mississippi in June 1964—said the ruling fit a broader pattern of the Court narrowing civil rights protections. He said the response should begin with casting ballots.
The remarks followed the publication of interviews dated July 27, 2026, in which the families connected their relatives’ deaths to the era that produced landmark civil rights legislation, including the Voting Rights Act signed into law under President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965.
