Alabama’s only Black member of Congress welcomes a fight over her voting rights bill

In August, Rep. Terri Sewell stood at the foot of the Edmund Pettus Bridge in her hometown, Selma, Alabama, to tout H.R. 4, the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.

Sewell, currently Alabama's only Black member of Congress and the delegation’s only Democrat, had high hopes after she introduced the legislation named in honor of her late mentor and friend.

The House voted soon afterward to pass the bill, but it stalled in the Senate last year. In January, a modified measure called the Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act failed to clear the chamber.

“We’re at a great inflection point in our nation’s history,” said Sewell, a Harvard-educated lawyer who was first elected in 2010. “We have to remember John’s words: ‘Ours is the struggle of a lifetime, or maybe even many lifetimes, and each one of us in every generation must do our part.’”

Sewell returned home this month and headed to the infamous bridge for the 57th commemoration of Bloody Sunday.

On March 7, 1965, Selma was catapulted into the nation’s consciousness. Hosea Williams of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and Lewis, then the chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, led more than 500 peaceful protesters over the bridge en route to the State Capitol. The march was sparked by the killing of a young local man, Jimmie Lee Jackson, and demands around the right to vote.

Armed state troopers and a deputized posse met the men, women and children with brute force, firing tear gas and swinging billy clubs, bullwhips and cattle prods. The violence was captured on television and in newspaper images. A second march was cut short, but weeks later, Martin Luther King Jr. led thousands of nonviolent demonstrators who completed the 50-mile march from Selma to Montgomery, where a rally took place on the State Capitol steps. Their actions spurred passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

The weekend of March 7 marked another anniversary for that pivotal chapter of the civil rights movement, as hundreds congregated for the annual Selma Bridge Crossing Jubilee. The event drew Vice President Kamala Harris and Cabinet members, members of Congress, relatives of King and Lewis, activists and people from around the country.

“Today, we stand on this bridge at a different time,” Harris said, calling the site “hallowed” ground. “We again, however, find ourselves caught in between — between injustice and justice, between disappointment and determination — still in a fight to form ‘a more perfect union.’ And nowhere is that more clear than when it comes to the ongoing fight to secure the freedom to vote.”

For Sewell, “voting rights are deeply personal.” A native of Alabama’s so-called Black Belt, she has roots that run as deep as the rich black soil that helped define the region. She was raised with two brothers by a librarian mother and a father who was a teacher and coach.

“I’m a daughter of Selma,” said Sewell, whose 7th Congressional District also includes Birmingham, Montgomery and Tuscaloosa, as well as smaller rural enclaves. “I stand on the shoulders of freedom fighters and foot soldiers.”

One of them was Amelia Boynton Robinson, the organizer who in 1964 became the first Black woman to seek a congressional seat in Alabama. She was beaten unconscious during the bridge protest. In 2015, Boynton was Sewell’s guest at President Barack Obama’s penultimate State of the Union address. “She joined the march that year and died months later at 103,” Sewell said.

On that fateful morning decades before, Boynton and fellow marchers started out at Brown Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Selma. Sewell’s family has worshiped at the church, now a national historic landmark, for decades. It was where she first met Lewis and many in the movement as a youngster.

After Sewell’s historic election to Congress, Lewis became a mentor on Capitol Hill and a close friend. She fondly called him the “Boy from Troy,” referring to King’s nickname for Lewis, a native of Troy, Alabama. Lewis dubbed his protégé the “Girl from Selma” in return.

They served together on the powerful House Ways and Means Committee; Sewell was recently named a co-chair of its new Racial Equity Initiative. In 2013, the two sat side by side in the gallery as the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case Shelby County v. Holder. For decades, the Voting Rights Act helped ensure equal access at the ballot box by requiring states and localities with histories of voter discrimination to get preclearance from the Justice Department before they could change their voting laws.

The Shelby case stripped “key provisions” of the landmark legislation, Sewell said. Then, last year, “the court’s ruling on Brnovich v. DNC” further gutted the law.

According to the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law, legislatures have introduced more than 400 bills in 49 states that Democrats contend would restrict access to the ballot and disproportionately affect voters of color. The GOP and supporters have termed them voter integrity measures, and dozens have become law.

In Alabama alone, 23 bills have been introduced “that would allow for excessive voter purging, permit racial and partisan gerrymandering, and encourage voter intimidation, and implement stricter voter I.D. requirements,” leaders of multiple civil rights organizations said a recent statement.

Sewell said bolstering federal voting law is especially critical given the 2022 midterm elections and the congressional redistricting cycle.

The Supreme Court halted a lower court order last month requiring Alabama to redraw its new congressional map. Last year, a panel of federal judges struck down the map because it did not provide for two majority-minority districts. While Black people are about 27 percent of Alabama’s population, they are represented in only one of its seven congressional seats.

“The court order is yet another blow to the fight for fair Black political representation that is at the heart of the Voting Rights Act of 1965,” said Sewell, a co-chair of the Congressional Voting Rights Caucus and a co-chair of the Congressional Black Caucus’ Voting Rights Task Force. “The ruling allows the votes of Black Alabamians to be diluted and further undermines Section 2 of the VRA.”

Previous versions of H.R. 4 have also passed the House but faltered in the Senate. The bill was renamed for Lewis after his death on July 17, 2020. It would restore a section of the Voting Rights Act that stopped discriminatory voting changes before they were implemented, restore another section to remedy denial of voting or dilution of the right of people of color to vote, expand voting access (that is, early voting and same-day voter registration), establish Election Day as a federal holiday, ensure access for people with disabilities and more.

“It would re-establish much-needed federal oversight to ensure that minority voters are fairly represented,” Sewell said.

While advancing federal voting rights has been a major focus for Sewell, so have issues like jobs, education and health care access.

Helping her constituents access Covid-19 care and other health conditions has also been a priority. She watched her father, Andrew Sewell, who died in 2017, battle a series of strokes. Her mother, Nancy Gardner Sewell, the first Black woman on Selma’s City Council, died in June. Like Lewis, she had pancreatic cancer.

Sewell is lead sponsor of a measure that would help ensure that new, innovative blood-based cancer screenings are covered by Medicare after they are approved by the Food and Drug Administration. She was invited to the White House for President Joe Biden’s announcement of the relaunch of the Cancer Moonshot.

Sewell, who also holds degrees from Princeton and Oxford, has championed Alabama schools and colleges. As vice chair of the Bipartisan Congressional HBCU Caucus, she has sought increased funding and support for Tuskegee University, Alabama State University and other nearby institutions.

Ever mindful of the sacrifices of civil rights heroes — many of them unsung — she says she views what has transpired around voting rights as a roadblock, not the end of the road. For example, New York is considering its own version of the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act.

Sewell, who is up for re-election this year, vowed that if voters return her to the 118th Congress, she plans to reintroduce the bill.

“Change rarely comes in the halls of Congress without agitation,” said Sewell, who said she believes senators have to be pressured and that the public must “mobilize, organize” to revamp voting rights. “We can be disappointed or frustrated. But we must never be deterred. Your vote does matter.

“History doesn’t end here,” she added. “As long as I have breath in my body, I will continue to fight for voting rights.”

How Technology is Transforming Banking?

Like it's doing to the rest of the world digital technology is in the process of transforming banks. And in the forefront of that transformation of people like Cathy percent she is bank of America Merrill Lynch chief operations and technology officer Cathy is in New York today to celebrate her number one ranking among its. Usually testers top tech 50 and it's hardly any wonder of bank of America's 209000 employees 100000 I repeat that 100000 employees report up to Kathy.

How Technology is Transforming Banking?

Kathy welcome liberty great to have you here David thanks for having me so I guess most obvious which is one of those 0 people doing and the prime one hand wouldn't give you those people begin once I'm done with what they doing everything from designing great technology to processing manual checks to make sure it making sure that coins in cash are an ATM machines not just in the United States but around while. Give me a rough sense how much of this if I can put in these terms as defense of it how much was often so. How much is incident we gotta comply with things we've got to have some systems to check on things as opposed to we're really changing the business. Well one of things I love about my space is that technology operations actually do both at the same time see there is no such thing really as defense of our offensive if for complying with the regulation we should be using that to produce great customer service. And if we are moving the business forward that should in turn reduce risk so I I see them as a totally interrelated listen let's be to see first business to consumer alright what exactly are your 0 people doing in your relations with the individual depositors and customers of black America will they really trying to do I think 3 things first of all they're trying to make this ubiquitous to customers.

Stories in a digital era want just want everything that they can get from us when they want to see and where they want us to number one try to be back with us. Number 2 we've got to be flawless in our execution. And they expect perfection today and they get perfection in so much of the payments world so delivering flawlessly is important plus the cost of poor quality in social media environment is just devastating. I'm in third they expect speed they expect incredible speed and we work every day to take latency out of every part of the system. You're in a very special position to see into the future at least look into the future try to see in the future. I would have branches 5 years well yeah I think we well I think we will have they may not they won't be maybe our primary service channel but we will have branches people still will use currency. People will still process manual tracks.

That is the challenge for banking and really for many industries that have a combination of retail and digital presence is to say how do we marry those together how do we ensure that I'm that there contemporary with the time so you'll see fewer people in our financial centers but physically they'll still exist and how do we put technology into them. So they are as ubiquitous as your mobile device and had we make the mobile device capable of being the branch in your hand one of things that technology is done in various industries. Is break down some of the walls it expands it makes it easier for him to move into your business. It also makes it easier if you move into other people's businesses.

So what you're competitive set how is that changing now it's not just Wells Fargo is not just JP Morgan you've got apple pay you've got how lending club you got all these other competitors how do you see that world well for one thing I think that competition and the threat of destruction is nothing but good for clients and customers it produces better capabilities at lower prices and it causes us to be better. And I think we sort of think about it 3 ways I are our competitors are now digital companies fin tech firms we can either buy from them which we do extensively and in many cases we help them grow or we can partner with them apple pays a good example we share actual client on economics. Or in places where we feel like it's absolutely core to our competitive advantage.

Will compete like. The way things are you have because of this technology is a lot of data. And big data is a favorite thing for people to talk about what are you doing with that big data what can you do that big data. Well I we can do a lot and there's no question that the future of the firm depends on us doing more. So today we do simple things like truck like Amazon try to anticipate what you might need next time try to make sure that the offering that we have is right in front of you when you want it. I had to make sure that we for large corporations that we can and massive data and research in a way that gives our corporate clients a competitive advantage but that's just scratching the surface were trying to be better at that but but the uses of the future will go way beyond that discs man the top line or does it save costs. It should be better if it should produce great capabilities for customers should produce revenue opportunities which our very important in a business at like ours it is Stanley margins to begin with.



But that thin margin and heavy capital that we all carry that by regulation has to be patient the cost side of things and the cost takeout opportunity that comes from technology and productivity on better faster cheaper is the way that I think about it on that that costs take out capability actually helps us bring tough to get revenue to the bottom line to create a shareholder proposition that actually works gives an example or 2 before you could be creating new business increasing the top one is that taking market share from some of your traditional rivals a banking is it creating new businesses words that money come from well I give an example and I wealth management space we've worked very hard on them on them mobility of our wealth management offerings said that a financial adviser can communicate with the client not just added to ask. But anyway that client wants to be communicated with their for at the moment the client is making a decision I. E. producing revenue for the firm potentially we have financial advisors with deep information and the ability to give excellent advice right face to face or electronically face to face with customers at the moment of decision and that creates revenue. Is it finally we can't talk about technology and banks that are what cyber security. A very big issue I know on your plate.

Brian Warner has been on this program talking about that but give us a sense of the state of the play right now even just this morning's report that perhaps Iran attacked Saudi Arabia's governmental systems and their computers what do you do a bank of America to try to defend against those sorts of attacks. Well first about the attack tax across all industry are increasing at exponential rates and so it isn't as simple as a defensive posture we have to take an aggressive offensive posture and and forward looking posture as well so it it's a very strange space because you're only judged up to the second.

That you're in there's even less than the next 10 seconds something could happen so very difficult space manage so we say 2 things first of all we're not going to constrain our company by resources or by great talent and this is a place cyber where resources and talent and especially talent really matter. So we work to have a world class team. And they care a lot about defending the firm. And we insure that every element of how we design our business actually reduces cyber risk rather than increases it you know the counter intuitive saying is that electronic banking it's much easier to defend than the old manual way of doing business as if. Get the sense thank you so much for being here today that's Captiva centuries BankAmerica chief operations and technology officer.