Clyburn: ‘This Supreme Court Is Attempting to Reinstate Plessy Versus Ferguson’

Saturday on MS NOW’s “PoliticsNation,” Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC) said the Supreme Court was trying to reinstate Plessy v. Ferguson, the overturned ruling in favor of racial segregation laws.

Host Al Sharpton said, “Talking about the attempted gerrymander. You survived this week, one of several, that Southern Republicans have taken up since the Supreme Court’s VRA decision last month. Your seat was saved, thankfully. But the week also ended with Louisiana axing one of its majority black districts and a federal appeals court clearing Alabama to use a previous map that was ruled discriminatory against black voters. All that together, Congressman, how would you describe the mood at Friday’s gathering you had what was on people’s minds?”

Clyburn said, “We want people realize this is not just South Carolina or Louisiana or Alabama. This is an attempt to undo everything that the 1965 Voting Rights Act had done. They started out with Shelby County v. Holder and got rid of Section Five pre-clearance. And at the time, interestingly, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Chief Justice Roberts, said, well, there may be some problems along the way, but you still got a right of action in Section Two if anybody were to do some mischief. Well, the delay decision came getting rid of Section Two. So we see a trend here that this Supreme Court is attempting to reinstate Plessy versus Ferguson. That was decided back in the 1890s and which led to this tremendous drought of African-American representation in the Congress that lasted 29 years. It lasted 95 years here in South Carolina.”

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