Op-Ed: 2 Photos, 1 Promise—60 Years After The Voting Rights Act

Imagine the scene, it’s Friday, August 6, 1965. President Lyndon B. Johnson is seated at a small writing desk set in the center of the President’s Room near the Senate Chambers surrounded by serious looking men in dark suits including Vice President Hubert Humphrey, Speaker John McCormack (D-MA), Sen. Jacob Javits (R-NY), Sen. Mike Mansfield (D-MT) and Rep. Emanuel Celler (D-NY).

He’s signing the Voting Rights Act of 1965, finally fulfilling the promise made nearly a century earlier when the states ratified the 14th Amendment to the Constitution.

Then, in an unprecedented moment, he turns around and proudly shakes the hand of one of the only three Black men in a sea of white faces: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

A photographer snapped a photo of that historic moment and it has lived in my mind and my heart as long as I can remember, alongside the snapshot of President Johnson handing a pen used to sign the landmark document to 25-year-old John Lewis, who looks down at the gift with reverence and awe.

As I look on those photographs today, this 60th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, they resonate not just because they measure a high-water mark in our struggle for civil rights and equality, but because on the faces of those two men, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the future Congressman John Lewis, I see something stirring just beneath their practiced stoicism and formality. I see a struggle beyond their own that reaches through generations all the way back to the first slaves who landed on American shores. I see all the pain and heartache, the tears shed and blood spilled, and, beyond that, I see hope.

I see a hope for generations yet to come who may never know the fear of white hoods or the indignity of Jim Crow, but instead, revel in the full promise of this nation where, for once, all are created equal.

Those photos have always been an inspiration to me, but now they break my heart not just because of the passing of two great leaders, men I admire so much, but because today that high-water mark is all but washed away.

Sixty years after the Voting Rights Act, the future its authors dreamed seems further away than ever. 

Today, instead of progress, we see President Trump pardoning white supremacists, forcing the Department of Justice to stop civil rights investigations and reversing justice reform so they can double down on their support for police violence and racism.

Instead of voting rights, we see the Supreme Court dismantling that 60-year-old landmark, installing modern-day poll taxes with voter ID and voter purges and illegally gerrymandering whole states to subvert the will of the people and the Constitution.

We thought we had moved forward, but today the White House has put segregation back in federal contracts, eliminating the TRIO programs that make college a reality for minority and first-generation students, whitewashing our history, mobilizing our American soldiers against American citizens and arresting anyone who even dares ask why.

In 1965, we called it progress, but 60 years later, Trump calls it “woke” and he wants to get rid of any traces of diversity, equity and inclusion, no matter the cost to our economy…or national conscience.

On August 6, 1965, we were moving forward, bending that arc of the moral universe toward justice. But now it’s August 6, 2025, and the reality is clear before us that every step towards progress will be pushed back if we don’t keep pushing forward.

I see those faces before me. I see my parents and grandparents. I see the students sitting in at the Woolworths lunch counters and the lines marching across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. I see the faces of Dr. King and John Lewis holding that moment in 1965…but the day and the men are gone.

It’s up to us now.

We have to speak for the families sick because of the MAGA cuts to Medicaid and the children hungry because the GOP gutted SNAP. We have to stand up for the men and women who can’t find a job that pays a living wage and the students forced into backbreaking debt because Trump’s allies want to turn a profit. We have to stand up for George Floyd, Philando Castille, Tyre Nichols, Breonna Taylor and William McNeil Jr., every one of us whose heart drops when we see a police car because we might be next and the parents praying that our children make it home safe.

It’s up to us right here and right now. It’s up to us and we can’t stop now. So let’s take this moment as we remember the Voting Rights Act to also remember Curtis Mayfield…and keep on pushing.

Antjuan Seawright is a Democratic political strategist, founder and CEO of Blueprint Strategy LLC and a senior visiting fellow at Third Way. Follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter, @antjuansea.

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