Dear Attorney General Sessions: Take a public stand for full restoration of the Voting Rights Act

We are alive again in a time of unprecedented attacks on the hard-won voting rights of African Americans and all people of color. Your new office at Main Justice—adorned with the photographs of influential, courageous civil servants—is a weathered but enduring symbol of the best and the worst of our nation’s history and the power of the law to protect those seeking to overcome the tyrannies of racism and inequality.

Prior to passage of the Voting Rights Act, a predecessor of yours, Robert F. Kennedy, was sworn into the office as the 64th Attorney General in a time of national turmoil. The building housing your office now honors his name. Yet at that time, many predicted that he could not be a full friend to civil rights— that he could not identify with the plight of African Americans and those in the pits of poverty, living under the yoke of subjugation and centuries of oppression. Attorney General Robert Kennedy, though, made a choice. After far too many spilled their blood marching unbowed in defense of our children’s futures and our dignity, the Department of Justice did not sit out in the fight for Black political power and the fundamental right to vote. The Department of Justice took a side. It was the side required by the Constitution then, and it is required by the Constitution and the Voting Rights Act now. Where there was resistance to equal opportunity and equal rights for all citizens, Attorney General Kennedy’s Department, imperfectly, but in accordance with the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1960, the anti-poll tax Amendment of 1962—and then, instrumentally, the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964—stood with the people fighting for our dignity, justice, and the soul of American democracy.

Now, as then, not one of us can stand on the sidelines. Least of all the Department of Justice. It is our belief that we must choose which side of history we will inhabit, and that each new day and every new role we take on holds within it a possibility to choose the right side. As the newly-confirmed 84th Attorney General of the United States, the time to choose is now undeniably upon you. The Voting Rights Act, an act you hold chief responsibility to provide oversight for is not and never has been—as we believe you would now agree—“a piece of intrusive legislation.” This act is the heart of our country’s obligation to the martyrs of Selma and signals nationwide that racism will not control our country’s future.

Your predecessor Robert F. Kennedy famously said, "Few will have the greatness to bend history, but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation." You are beginning on a new journey. As thousands gather in Selma on this historic occasion, as our chief law enforcement officer, Attorney General Sessions, we call on you to stand now for fully restored voting rights, human rights, and for equal justice under the law.

If you are willing, please reply affirmatively to this request. We welcome your endorsement of the immediate renewal of the full protections of the Voting Rights Act. If you are unwilling, we will not be moved in our determination to demand that we live up to the full promises and obligations of our Constitution and to stand with the people of these United States against the scourge of racism and for our deepest held moral values.

In the struggle for Truth and Justice,

The Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II
The Rev. Dr. Traci D. Blackmon
Penda Hair, Esq.
Rabbi Lucy H.F. Dinner
Hank Sanders, Esq.
Rabbi Jonah Dov Pesner
Irving Joyner, Esq.
Sister Simone Campbell, SSS
The Rev. Mark Thompson
The Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr.
Jim Wallis
Valarie Kaur
The Rev. Noel Castellanos
The Rev. Dr. Katharine Henderson
The Rev. Michael-Ray Mathews
The Rev. Dr. Jacqueline Lewis
The Rev. angel Kyodo williams Sensei,
Bishop Gene Robinson
The Rev. Brian McLaren