GOP will pay for racism

It took federal troops in some Southern states to push back and eliminate Jim Crow laws in the 1950s and ’60s. Why? Because there was systemic racism in those states to such an extent that Black people simply could not overcome those laws without such federal help.

Racism was rampant, and white supremacy reigned in states such as Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia and the Carolinas. That is not true today. In effect, blatant white supremacy now resides only in the Republican Party. And though it is true that the party is dominant in several state legislatures, the great majority of Americans are no longer white supremacists.

Social justice has progressed too much the past 50 years to ever go back. And while we have seen this growth, we have also seen a continued, strong reverence for free elections. Americans cherish their right to vote.

Yes, these Republican-controlled states are passing voter-suppression laws, but these laws will not work. Americans will vote, and the backlash will be such that they will vote in even greater numbers, in spite of these attempts at suppression.

When that happens, the reign of these Republican legislatures and governors will be over. Let us hope that those conservatives who have not lost either their minds or their love for American democracy will, at that time, pull together a new political party, a party that can truly share in the concepts of both social justice and governance by all of the people for all of the people.

Richard Strickland, Las Vegas