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Threats to voting rights rarely announce themselves as “suppression.” 

In this episode, Bishop Wright has a conversation with Janai Nelson, President and Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. They discuss the SAVE Act and related proposals that would tighten voter registration. Janai explains why the US already has voter verification systems, why fraud is not the widespread problem it’s sold as, and how new rules can be engineered to shrink the electorate while sounding neutral on paper. 

This conversation goes deeper than policy. It wrestles with what it means to be a patriot in a country still learning how to be a multiracial democracy, and why naming white supremacy matters if we’re serious about building something better. Janai offers a framework that sticks with us: reckon with our past, reimagine what this country can be, and refound it by removing the harmful systems that still weigh us down. If the Voting Rights Act of 1965 is a kind of “birth certificate” for modern American democracy, then the work of growing up is still unfinished and still possible. Listen in for the full conversation.

Janai Nelson is President and Director-Counsel of the Legal Defense Fund (LDF), the nation’s premier civil rights law organization fighting for racial justice and equality. As the institutional thought-leader, she directs the organization’s programmatic strategy and operations. Throughout her career, she has played a pivotal role in numerous landmark legal cases, shaping the fight for civil rights.

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