Fifty years after voting act, black churches fight new voting restrictions

Fifty years after the signing of the Voting Rights Act, many black churches are redoubling efforts to maintain access to the ballot box.

James C. Perkins, president of the historically black Progressive National Baptist Convention, said the denomination is joining other religious and civic groups to challenge restrictions in state voting laws.

The act, signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson 50 years ago (August 6), was a crowning achievement of the civil rights movement. But in 2013 the Supreme Court invalidated key provisions, and many states, nearly all of them under Republican control, passed new voting restrictions that critics say target minority voters.