Thousands of demonstrators converged on the US capital, Washington, DC, on Friday to warn of threats to voting rights ahead of November's midterm elections.

The event marked the 63rd anniversary of the March on Washington, the historic 1963 protest that galvanized the US civil rights movement. This year's march, however, carried a theme directly tied to the midterms: "Defend the vote."

Civil rights leaders spoke of troubling trends they fear will erode the voting power of Black and minority citizens. "We know in this fight we're fighting powerful forces, but this is why we rally today," said Marc Morial, president and CEO of the National Urban League. "This is why we seek to bring Americans together of goodwill from all races, from all sections of the country, to push back as forcefully as we can."

Since taking office for a second term, President Donald Trump has undertaken efforts to restrict voting that critics fear will limit access for lower-income and minority voters. This includes advocating for greater proof of citizenship before voting, which would require documents like birth certificates or passports that may not be accessible to everyone.

Speakers at the march also denounced a Supreme Court decision in April that struck down key provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, a landmark piece of civil rights legislation designed to crack down on practices that disenfranchised Black voters. The court's conservative majority argued it was impossible to "disentangle race from politics," and declared that a congressional map could only be struck down if there was evidence that states had "intentionally" limited opportunities for non-white voters through "strong interference."

Critics say this new legal standard effectively made racial discrimination legal for the purpose of drawing voting maps. In the aftermath, several Republican-led states passed new congressional maps favoring their party, often by carving up majority-Black districts.

In a letter, Reverend Al Sharpton, an organizer of Friday's march, drew a line between the fight for voting rights during the civil rights era and present-day circumstances. "We stand on the same ground because the work is not finished," Sharpton said, referring to the site of the 1963 march. "The right to vote, the very foundation of our power, is being chipped away in statehouse after statehouse. When the vote is weakened, every other right grows fragile with it."

Senator Bernie Sanders, a progressive leader, told the crowd that the "dream of a more just and equitable society has never been under greater threat than it is right now." He denounced Trump for his actions to weaken voting rights. "Today, we have a president along with the Supreme Court members he appointed carrying out the most significant assault on voting rights since segregation, targeting virtually every aspect of the electoral system," Sanders said.

Source: www.aljazeera.com