In Memory
May 14, 1961, Anniston, Alabama, — Passengers of this smoking Greyhound bus, some of the members of the “Freedom Riders,” a group sponsored by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), sit on the ground after the bus was set afire 5/14, by a mob of Caucasians who followed the bus from the city. The mob met the bus at the terminal, stoned it & slashed the tires, then followed the bus from town. BPA2# 47. — Image by © Bettmann/CORBIS
It’s a rule the Supreme Court created in Purcell v. Gonzalez (2006). It says:
Courts should avoid changing election rules close to an election because it might confuse voters.
This principle has been used to:
In other words:
If a map is illegal but the election is near, the Supreme Court often says: “Use the illegal map anyway — we’ll deal with it later.”
This is why you see Black districts eliminated or weakened right before elections, even when courts agree the maps are discriminatory.
me and AI … let me know if you think it’s not accurate and cite the source for the correction if needed
1264 – King Henry III was captured by his brother in law Simon deMontfort at the Battle of Lewes in France.
1509 – In the Battle of Agnadello, French defeated Venitians in Northern Italy.
1607 – An expedition led by Captain Christopher Newport went ashore at Jamestown, Virginia. The group had arrived at the location the day before. This became the first permanent English colony in America.
1610 – French King Henri IV (Henri de Navarre) was assassinated by a fanatical monk, François Ravillac.
1643 – Louis XIV became King of France at age 4 upon the death of his father, Louis XIII.
1727 – Thomas Gainsborough was born. He was an English painter.
1787 – Delegates began gathering in Philadelphia for a convention to draw up the U.S. Constitution.
1796 – The first smallpox vaccination was given by Edward Jenner.
1804 – William Clark set off the famous expedition from Camp Dubois. A few days later, in St. Louis, Meriwether Lewis joined the group. The group was known as the “Corps of Discovery.”
1811 – Paraguay gained independence from Spain.
1853 – Gail Borden applied for a patent for condensed milk.
1862 – The chronograph was patented by Adolphe Nicole.
1874 – McGill University and Harvard met at Cambridge, MA, for the first college football game to charge admission.
1878 – The name Vaseline was registered by Robert A. Chesebrough.
1879 – Thomas Edison incorporated the Edison Telephone Company of Europe.
1897 – “The Stars and Stripes Forever” by John Phillip Sousa was performed for the first time. It was at a ceremony where a statue of George Washington was unveiled.
1897 – Guglielmo Marconi made the first communication by wireless telegraph.
1913 – The Rockefeller Foundation was created by John D. Rockefeller with a gift of $100,000,000.
1935 – The Philippines ratified an independence agreement.
1940 – The Netherlands surrendered to Nazi Germany.
1942 – The Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps (WAAC) was established by an act of the U.S. Congress.
1942 – “Lincoln Portrait” by Aaron Copland was performed for the first time by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.
1942 – The British, while retreating from Burma, reached India.
1948 – Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion proclaimed the independent State of Israel as British rule in Palestine came to an end.
1955 – The Warsaw Pact, a Easter European mutual-defense treaty, was signed in Poland by eight communist bloc countries including the Soviet Union.
1961 – A bus carrying Freedom Riders was bombed and burned in Alabama.
1967 – Mickey Mantle hit his 500th homerun.
1969 – Jacqueline Susann’s second novel, “The Love Machine,” was published by Simon and Schuster.
1973 – Skylab One was launched into orbit around Earth as the first U.S. manned space station.
1975 – U.S. forces raided the Cambodian island of Koh Tang and recaptured the American merchant ship Mayaguez. All 40 crew members were released safely by Cambodia. About 40 U.S. servicemen were killed in the military operation.
1980 – U.S. President Carter inaugurated the Department of Health and Human Services.
1985 – Ray Kroc’s first McDonald’s restaurant became the first fast-food business museum. It is located in Des Plaines, Illinois.
1988 – In the Andean village of Cayara, Peru’s military was involved in a massacre of at least 26 peasants.
1992 – Former Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev addressed members of the U.S. Congress, appealing to them to pass a bill to aid the people of the former Soviet Union.
1996 – A tornado hit 80 villages in nothern Bangladesh. More than 440 people were killed.
1998 – The Associated Press marked its 150th anniversary.
1998 – The final episode of the TV series “Seinfeld” aired after nine years on NBC.
1999 – North Korea returned the remains of six U.S. soldiers that had been killed during the Korean War.
1999 – Jess Marlow received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
2005 – The art exhibit “Gumby and Friends: The First 50 Years” opened at the Lynn House Gallery in Antioch, CA.
on-this-day.com
If the courts consistently applied precedent, a lot of this would already be stopped! Thing is, it feels like SCOTUS stopped following it!
Guess what, precedent isn’t gone — it’s dormant!
Preclearance came from Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. It required certain states and counties — mostly in the South — to get federal approval before changing any voting rules.
This included changes like:
They could not take effect until the federal government said:
“This change does not discriminate against minority voters.”
This was a proactive protection — it stopped discrimination before it happened.
Before 2013, preclearance blocked:
The Department of Justice blocked over 1,000 discriminatory changes between 1965 and 2013.
Without preclearance, many of those changes would have gone into effect.
Within hours of the Shelby ruling:
This is why you’re seeing the pattern you described — and why it feels like it’s spreading.
The areas covered were determined by Section 4(b), which used data on:
This included states like:
And many counties in other states.
These were places with long, documented histories of suppressing Black voters.
Be a Seed for Change 
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