The year 2020 proved to be historic for more than just giving the country, and the world, a pandemic that literally shut down everything and everyone. It would also be the year that the citizens of the United States participated in the most consequential presidential election in history. It would go on to be a year in which voters turned out at the polls in record numbers. Participation data revealed almost 160 million voted, translating to 66% of all Americans exercising their right to decide who would sit in the White House for the next four years. But what was also profound and significant was the Black vote. It was the power of the Black arm that repudiated the Donald Trump administration and the GOP and propelled Joseph R. Biden to the presidency. With Black America voting as one for Biden, the surge of power that ignited a swift change in Washington had many in the GOP looking for ways to suppress and contain it as is the history of White supremacy in America. The key phrase for implementing that plan of suppressing the Black vote is “election integrity.”

Election integrity bills started to pop up in GOP states such as Florida and Texas almost immediately after the inauguration of President Biden. In fact, “election integrity conferences” were held with lawmakers in states throughout the country to “inform” legislators how they can successfully hold “safe” and “secure” balloting in the future. The need for so-called “election integrity” legislation is moot because voting officials across the country categorically deny that there was a substantial lapse in security at the polls, or in the receipt and processing of mailin ballots. The conspiracy theory or “big lie” that the 2020 election was “stolen” from Trump due to widespread voter fraud was shot down by then Attorney General William Barr who stated weeks after the election that “we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election.” Yet, this did not stop the nearly 440 “election integrity” bills that have been introduced in 49 states across the country, with 19 of those states passing 34 voter restriction laws. It did not matter that, according to Barr, in a meeting with Trump in the Oval Office in late November 2020, that the cries of “extensive voter fraud” were “unsubstantiated” and “b*llsh*t.” What mattered was the bottom line: Black Americans turned out the vote and it was the power of that vote in key battleground states that led Biden to a historic win, ceremoniously defeating Trump.

So, the question as to how and what political means could be employed to stifle, suppress, discourage and silence the Black vote was raised. The traditional tried and true techniques of physical intimidation by way of beatings and lynching may not be the readily and blaringly obvious toolsthese days in the White supremacy playbook, but the foundational thread that ties discrimination, racial injustice and voter suppression are located in the creation of legislation that attempts to have the same strangulation effect of a public lynching, but in a more insidious fashion. The political hot topic of critical race theory that so many GOP politicians salivate over with unrighteous indignation addresses how laws were crafted in such a way as to proliferate the oppression of Black America, and these laws are embedded in the Constitution and in state constitutions. With the propagation of “voter suppression” legislation, that could likely thrust Black voters into a Jim Crow-like posture, the GOP can conclusively disrupt the Black vote.

But a federal district judge has impeded the state of Florida from doing just that. In a blistering indictment of Florida’s racist past and history of voter suppression, Chief U.S. District Court Judge Mark Walker detailed in his decision last Thursday that the legislation Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law last year, SB90, which featured restrictions on mail-in voting and the number of ballot boxes accessible to communities of color, was nothing more than a 21st century throwback intended to shackle, disrupt and silence Black voters to the political benefit of the state GOP. Judge Mark Walker noted that “Florida has a grotesque history of racial discrimination.” and in his ruling to block SB 90, wrote that during Reconstruction, Florida “did everything it could to prevent [Black men] citizens from voting.” In 1887, the Floridian legislature drafted its first voter registration law to specifically target the Black vote. Black men had to provide a “registration certificate.” In 1888 a literacy test called the “Eight Box Law,” and on its heels the poll tax, were instituted to thwart Black balloting. Black Floridians were murdered, and entire towns burned to the ground to dissuade prospective Black voters. While there has been considerable progress since Reconstruction and Jim Crow, Walker indicated that contrary to some, even in 2022, “we do not live in a post racial society.”

The obvious racial and political divide between White and Black Floridians is along the line of political party with “Black Floridians extremely likely to vote for the Democratic Party” and “White Floridians likely to vote for the Republican Party.” However, this is where Judge Mark Walker observes the problematic structure of SB 90. “Since 2000, Florida has repeatedly purged or sought to purge its voter rolls,” Walker remarked, “These purges and attempted purges have consistently and disproportionately affected, or threatened to affect, Black voters.” On and off over the years, Florida has consistently used the act of purging voter rolls in discriminatory ways that has purposefully affected Blacks disproportionately. Mail-in and early voting became another discriminatory target of the Florida legislature when it was revealed Black Floridians “substantially exceeded White usage” of this provision, which coincidentally is being restricted in 18 other states more than likely for this duplicitous line of reasoning. It can be argued by the DeSantis administration that the new “election integrity” law, also known as the voter restriction/suppression law under the SB 90 umbrella, is not designed to be discriminatory against Blacks or any other minority. But Judge Walker stated in his decision last week that with a body of evidence spanning 20 years of what many scholars would in effect define the crux of critical race theory to be, Florida does in fact have a systemic racism issue that is being woven into the fabric of preventing its Black citizens from participating in a free and fair election thereby exercising their right to have a political voice unencumbered. What was striking about Walker’s decision to block this voter suppression law from taking effect, is the direct linkage he makes with connecting Florida’s past racist egregiousness to the present. He stated that “when the Florida Legislature passes law after law disproportionately burdening Black voters, this Court can no longer accept that the effect is incidental. Based on the indisputable pattern set out above, this Court finds that, in the past 20 years, Florida has repeatedly sought to make voting tougher for Black voters because of their propensity to favor Democratic candidates.”

Chief U.S. District Court Judge Mark Walker revealed only what Black America has known since Reconstruction. The fight to be full-fledged participatory first-class citizens in this country remains an uphill battle. The right to have a voice in how this country should be governed is not respected or accepted by those seeking to cement and validate White supremacy and political dominance in America. Florida is not the only state that has to reckon with its disingenuous forked propaganda that proclaims “fairness” and “equality” while simultaneously drafting law after law that repeatedly disenfranchise minorities, women, immigrants of color and the LGBTQI community. Texas, Georgia, Iowa, Nevada, Indiana, South Carolina, and Tennessee are just a few of those states that have enacted restrictive voter laws all under the false flag of “election integrity” but under the umbrella of racial discrimination. It is likely that Judge Walker’s decision will be appealed. No word yet from Gov. DeSantis’ office on when the appeal will be filed.