The Enterprising Heroism of David Richards
As the Supreme Court dismantles the Voting Rights Act before our eyes, let’s take a moment to honor those who made it work so well for so long.
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June 2, 2026
Last fall, after the passing of my friend and mentor David Richards, I wrote two posts on this blog about his career and his vast network of friends. Of necessity, I did not write much about his extraordinary importance to the cause of equality and civil rights in this country, since complicated discussions of legal cases and rulings was not my goal.
But then the Supreme Court decided Louisiana v. Callais last month, essentially stripping the Voting Rights Act of its enforcement power. In response, white Republican majorities in several southern legislatures redrew their congressional maps to reduce or eliminate black voting power in their states.
That’s when I decided I had to write about why David Richards’s civil rights advocacy was so important.
As originally passed, Section 2 of the VRA was a broad ban on discriminatory practices: “No voting qualification or prerequisite to voting, or standard, practice, or procedure shall be imposed or applied by any State or political subdivision to deny or abridge the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color.”
That’s it. There were literally no specific practices mentioned.
The job of fleshing out the intent and promise of the VRA thus fell to civil rights advocacy groups and their lawyers, working through the courts.
In the lawsuit that became White v Regester, David took on one of the more insidious practices: multi-member districts. In those days, all the state representatives in Dallas and Bexar counties were chosen in countywide elections. A black or brown candidate might run to represent a particular area or constituency of the county, but every voter in the county had a say. Of course, the countywide voting pool was overwhelmingly white, and so minority representatives were vanishingly rare in those two counties. This practice was also common in many states of the Old South.
In White v Regester, the Supreme Court ruled multi-member districts unconstitutional and ordered the creation of single-member districts. Once the decision had become law, Richards and others filed lawsuits across the Old South, bringing down multi-member districts across the region.
Unfortunately, that same region has now been liberated by Callais to draw blatantly discriminatory congressional districts, so long as they aren’t caught doing it intentionally.
Here’s my point: the voting rights most of us take for granted did not arrive magically, like Ten Commandments delivered from on high or a huge basket of goodies trekked in by Santa Claus.
No, they were created out of thin air and legislative intent by brilliant, creative, hard-working folks like David Richards and Al Kauffman and Nina Perales and George Korbel, supported by groups like the ACLU, MALDEF, LULAC and the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. They all worked with little expectation they would win, no expectation they would get paid if they did, and the nagging sense of having to watch their backs on the way home every night.
You may be young enough, or lucky enough, to not recognize these names. That is because the work they did from the 1960s on secured and safeguarded your right to vote, and to make your participation in that most American of civic activities as easy and painless as possible.
With their life’s work now under attack by SCOTUS, the Save America Act, mid-decade redistricting and other pestilences, the least you can do this November is
GET OFF YOUR ASS AND VOTE!
In the meantime, pout one out for these heroes. Better still, make a donation to their work.
Thank you Deece.
Amen, Deece. Amen.