Was the existence of the Soviet Union key to the end of Jim Crow and the adoption of The Voting Rights Act of 1965? In a pessimistic (realistic?) discussion of the future of The Voting Rights Act, The Black Commentator argues it was:

The unpleasant truths of this political moment are:

1. Renewable portions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA) seem increasingly likely to die in the Congress this session.

2. Recent Supreme Court decisions indicate the court is inclined to “interpret” permanent provisions of the Voting Rights Act into meaninglessness.

3. Democrats in the US. House and Senate seem disinclined to fight very hard for the voting rights of blacks, and;

4. With no superpower rival on the international scene and the domestic mass movement disbanded and sent home a generation ago, the powers that be face little or no meaningful consequences at home or abroad for killing the VRA.

[ snip ]

A key external factor behind a portion of the US elite’s embrace of the cause of black voting rights was the presence on the international scene of a superpower rival to the US, the Soviet Union. The USSR was a global competitor of the US, and the persistent denial of black civil and voting rights placed the US at a severe disadvantage, especially with Asian and African people who had their own all too recent and bitter memories of racist exploitation and colonialism at the hands of European powers. Ending Jim Crow, for a piece of the US elite, was a Cold War priority.

Perhaps the international scene will once again influence democracy in the US. Maybe the flourishing democracy* in Iraq will shame us into renewing our commitment to democracy here at home.


*sarcasm