Nearly 60 years have passed since Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr. stood in the U.S. Capitol to watch Lyndon Johnson sign a long-sought dream into law—the rights of Black citizens to cast a ballot. Voting rights are once again top of the agenda for lawmakers in Washington. Is legislative lightning about to strike twice?
“The Voting Rights Act accomplished quite a great deal but it didn’t fix everything,” says Costas Panagopoulos, head of Northeastern’s political science department. “Expanding the franchise has been an ongoing battle in this country.”
Northeastern will explore that issue further during its annual Martin Luther King Jr. holiday ceremony on Jan. 17, A Tribute to the Dream: Voting Rights and the ‘Threat to Justice Everywhere.’ The live event starts at 3 p.m. ET and will be streamed on northeastern.edu and Facebook.
