The Mobile County NAACP Branch #5044 will host its annual Freedom Fund Banquet on Thursday, August 6. That marks the signing of the 1965 Voting Rights Act 50 years ago. But before this golden anniversary arrived, the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated a key provision of that law, and now the voting rights of millions of Americans are threatened, again. So the theme for our event is, “The Voting Rights Act at 50: What Now?”
Our keynote speaker is Ryan Haygood, formerly the Deputy Director of Litigation for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. In that capacity, this dynamic young man tried voting rights cases across the South. He was one of the lawyers in the Shelby County (Alabama) v. Eric Holder case, where five of nine Supreme Court justices decided to effectively remove the barriers in states and local government agencies that worked to deny or limit the voting rights of African Americans and other groups. Haygood is currently President and CEO of the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice, where he continues to work to undo the damage of the recent Supreme Court decision.
Mobile County Commissioner Merceria Ludgood is the honorary chairperson of this year’s historic banquet.
“We commemorate this event against a political backdrop that reminds us of the work that remains to be done,” she says. ” Legislatures across this country are working furiously to erect new barriers to the voting process. Low levels of African American turnout on Election day have further weakened our political strength.
“So it is my hope that congregations, organizations and businesses throughout this county will show their support for the NAACP — our only institution dedicated to ensuring voting rights and equality for all citizens regardless of color or creed — by having record participation at this year’s dinner,” Mrs. Ludgood says. “Proceeds from the event will continue to finance the NAACP’s advocacy efforts on our behalf.”
The Mobile County NAACP Branch has organized, sponsored and represented in a number of community events and forums just this year alone, including: voter registration and education; forums on health, criminal justice/law enforcement, environmental justice, civic engagement and education; youth development; veterans affairs; women’s affairs; economic/workforce development and financial literacy.
Our volunteer efforts depends upon the community’s financial support — from individuals to corporations — to continue and further expand our local charitable and advocacy efforts.
Tickets for $50 are still available for the Freedom Fund Banquet. To reserve your tickets, please email MobileALNAACP@gmail.com.
About the Speaker
Ryan P. Haygood President & CEO, New Jersey Institute for Social Justice
Ryan P. Haygood, one of the Nation’s leading civil rights advocates, became the third President and CEO of the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice (the “Institute”) in April 2015. As President and CEO, Haygood is leveraging his national expertise to advance the Institute’s cutting-edge work in expanding access to social justice and economic opportunity and advocating for juvenile and criminal justice reform in communities across New Jersey.
For more than a decade, Haygood has been engaged in social justice advocacy on a national level. Previously, as the Deputy Director of Litigation at the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF), Haygood worked to empower communities of color around the country by ensuring an open and inclusive political process, better educational and housing opportunities, access to employment that enables community residents to compete in a global economy, and a fair criminal justice system.
A proud resident of Newark, New Jersey’s South Ward, Haygood came to Newark fifteen years ago from Denver, Colorado, where his single mother raised him. Since then, he has been deeply invested in his community, mentoring hundreds of young people through Newark’s C.H.O.S.E.N., a teen youth group that he leads with his wife, Charity Haygood, a principal at a Newark public school. Newark’s C.H.O.S.E.N. seeks to prepare young people for purpose-driven living by developing and supporting spiritual growth, character, educational excellence, leadership skills, community service, and financial responsibility. Haygood also works closely with other leaders in his community to ensure that government agencies, including law enforcement, are responsive to their needs.
At LDF, Ryan litigated some of the most important civil rights cases of our time.
Ryan twice defended the constitutionality of a core provision of the federal Voting Rights Act, widely regarded as one of our nation’s greatest pieces of civil rights legislation, before the United States Supreme Court. In the most recent challenge, Ryan represented Black community leaders in Shelby County, Alabama v. Holder, a devastating case in which the Supreme Court struck as unconstitutional the coverage provision of the Voting Rights Act, leaving millions of voters of color vulnerable to voting discrimination.
Within days of the Shelby County decision, Texas implemented the strictest photo ID law in the country. Ryan led LDF’s successful legal challenge to Texas’s photo ID law, 2 arguing during a two-week federal trial that the law, which allowed for the use of concealed hand gun licenses but not student IDs, is racially discriminatory and imposes substantial and unjustified burdens on voters of color in Texas.
In September 2014, the district court found that Texas’s photo ID law, which prevented more than 600,000 registered voters from voting, is intentionally racially discriminatory, violates the Voting Rights Act, and is an unconstitutional poll tax.
Ryan also successfully challenged Fayette County, Georgia’s discriminatory at-large method of electing members to its county commission and school board, under which no Black candidate had ever been elected. As a remedy for the Voting Rights Act violation it found, the district court required Fayette County to conduct its elections under a district-based voting plan. In the November 2014 election, under the new plan, Fayette County voters both led the state of Georgia in voter turnout and made history by electing the first-ever Black woman to serve on the county commission.
Ryan has also been a pioneer in challenging state laws that disproportionately deny voting rights to people of color with felony convictions, widely recognized as the next frontier for the expansion of voting rights. In one of those cases, Farrakhan v. Gregoire, Ryan successfully challenged Washington’s law that denied the vote to people with felony convictions.
In the first ruling of its kind, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit struck down Washington’s law, finding that it shifted racial discrimination from the criminal justice system into the political process, thereby denying the right to vote to nearly 25 percent of all Black men in the state. Ryan subsequently argued the case before an 11-member panel of the Ninth Circuit, which ultimately reversed the historic ruling.
A passionate advocate, Ryan speaks and writes regularly on issues concerning race, law, civil rights, and democracy. He is frequently interviewed by numerous media outlets, including: MSNBC, CNN, National Public Radio, and the New York Times.
Prior to joining LDF, Ryan was a litigation associate in the New York office of Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson, LLP, and was a recipient of the prestigious LDF/Fried Frank Fellowship. At Fried, Frank, Ryan represented clients in a variety of complex commercial and civil rights matters before federal courts.
Ryan received his J.D. from the University of Colorado School of Law and B.A. in American History and Political Science cum laude from Colorado College, where he was nominated for the Rhodes scholarship and earned academic and athletic All-American honors as a football player.
