John Lewis

ACLU test reveals Amazon Rekognition misidentified 28 Congress members as criminals, showing racial bias

| Importance: 8/10

On July 26, 2018, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) released results of an independently verified test demonstrating that Amazon’s Rekognition facial recognition software incorrectly matched 28 members of Congress with mugshots from a database of arrest photos. The test, which cost …

ACLU Amazon AWS John Lewis Jimmy Gomez surveillance facial-recognition amazon rekognition racial-bias +4 more
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Voting Rights Act Reauthorization of 2006: 25-Year Extension Passes with Bipartisan Supermajority Before Conservative Legal Assault

| Importance: 7/10

President George W. Bush signed the Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks, and Coretta Scott King Voting Rights Act Reauthorization and Amendments Act of 2006, extending Section 5 preclearance requirements for 25 years with overwhelming bipartisan support. The House passed the bill 390-33 and the Senate …

George W. Bush Congress James Sensenbrenner John Lewis John Conyers voting-rights federal-legislation vra-extension bipartisan section-5
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Voting Rights Act Signed After Selma Bloody Sunday Defeats Southern Legislative Resistance

| Importance: 9/10

President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Voting Rights Act of 1965 into law, outlawing discriminatory voting practices that have disenfranchised millions of African Americans since Reconstruction. The legislation passes the Senate 77-19 on May 26 and the House 333-85 on July 9, overcoming a 24-day …

President Lyndon B. Johnson Martin Luther King Jr. John Lewis Southern Democratic Senators Richard Russell voting-rights civil-rights southern-strategy institutional-resistance voter-suppression
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Alabama State Troopers Attack Voting Rights Marchers on Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma Bloody Sunday

| Importance: 10/10

On March 7, 1965, approximately 600 voting rights activists began a march from Selma, Alabama, to the state capital of Montgomery to protest the killing of Jimmie Lee Jackson and the systematic denial of voting rights to Black citizens. Led by Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee chairman John …

John Lewis Hosea Williams Alabama State Troopers Amelia Boynton Lyndon B. Johnson civil-rights police-brutality voting-rights institutional-racism violence
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