In Person: Documentary on Voting Rights: "Let the People Decide"

The struggle over voting rights is headline news. This fight goes back generations as strategies to suppress the vote have evolved over the decades. Are race and politics inseparable?

Since the founding of this country, who gets to vote has been a contested issue. In 2013 a controversial Supreme Court ruling that gutted the Voting Rights Act further inflamed the issue as photo ID requirements and other strict voting regulations spread to many states. Many argue that these states are cynically trying to circumvent federal protections and prevent minorities from voting, while others insist that these new laws are common sense regulations designed to protect the integrity of elections.

These arguments serve to highlight the struggle that was waged to gain passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965. In the southern states of the U.S., the fight over voter registration came to a head over a 4 year period from 1961-1965. In that time there were beatings, bombings, protest marches, mass jailings and murder . Once the Voting Rights Act was signed, it was not the end of the struggle over voting, but the opening of a new front in the battle to attain and retain power. LET THE PEOPLE DECIDE will connect the dots across generations to illustrate how events from over 50 years ago are still reverberating in today’s heated political climate.

The narrative follows a Then and Now timeline that shares first person accounts from participants in the Civil Rights Movement as well as meeting present day activists that are fighting to preserve the gains of the past and forge a new path forward. The film will also explore the political fallout following the Voting Rights Act, how the states came to realign politically, and how race continued to be a common theme in manipulating and exploiting the motivations of politicians as well as those of the electorate.

There will be a Q & A with documentarian Gavin Guerra after the film. Please register below.

This program is co-sponsored by the Keeler Tavern Museum and History Center, the Ridgefield Historical Society, the League of Women Voters of Ridgefield and the Ridgefield chapter of the DAR (Daughters of the American Revolution).