This isn't exactly a fact I never knew, but it's a set of facts I don't think I've seen put together quite so starkly. (Though maybe something like it was in Ari Berman's book Give Us the Ballot.)
This graph, by Vox and displayed on All in with Chris Hayes tonight, shows the increase in Black voter registration in Southern states after the Voting Rights Act was signed in 1965:
These increases took place in about two-and-a-half years. Mississippi, you will notice, went from by far the lowest level of registration — about 5% — to the highest.
Votes need to count, too, of course. So gerrymandering and allowing legislatures or other officials to overrule elections are other important things to prevent to protect representative democracy.
It's all part of getting federal legislation passed to counter the democracy-suppression laws that are being passed by Republican-controlled legislatures and signed by Republican governors.
We won't go back to those orange bars, or their updated equivalents.
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