Grayson ("Gracie") Hoffman (she/her/hers) is a staff attorney for the League of Women Voters of the United States, working on the Advocacy and Litigation Team. Gracie started at the League as a legal intern, returned as a “surge” attorney ahead of the 2024 general election, and now serves as a staff attorney through the BU Law Public Service Fellowship Program. As staff attorney, Gracie provides legal research and litigation support for Leagues around the country.
2025 marks the 60th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, the historic day when civil rights activists attempted to march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, but were violently stopped by law enforcement.
The horrors of Bloody Sunday, broadcast across the nation, led to the signing of the most important and impactful civil rights legislation in our history. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA) marked the first time that access to the ballot was genuinely available for all American voters, directly addressing racial discrimination in voting.
Today, as we examine our current state of voting in the US, it’s crucial to see our history led us here and what we can learn.
In an unexpected decision last June, Allen v. Milligan, the US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) upheld Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and ruled that Alabama’s 2021 congressional map illegally diluted the voting power of Black Alabamians. Following SCOTUS’s ruling, Alabama defied the court’s order in an attempt to continue disempowering Black residents.
