The struggle to ensure people have access to the ballot box is one that G.K. Butterfield and his family have been involved in dating back to the early 20th century.

The North Carolina Democrat’s history in Wilson, N.C., is indelibly shaped by his immigrant father and his decadeslong advocacy on behalf of Black suffrage in a place notoriously resistant to it.

It extends through Butterfield’s own place in the civil rights era, and continues to the present day with his own legislative priorities, particularly a voting rights bill the House has passed that awaits action in the Senate.

Show Notes:

• Voting delays in Georgia primary spur calls for federal action before November
• ‘The rules are different for you’: Black lawmakers on when they got ‘the talk’
• Butterfield wants Pelosi to require masks on the House floor
• Mondaire Jones poised to become first gay Black man in Congress
• Domino effect: Washington football team’s name, statues in DC, in Capitol, face removal
• Black Caucus lays out legislative priorities for combating systemic racism
• ‘Watching John Lewis watch himself’: Dawn Porter’s documentary on the civil rights icon
• A good time for a film about ‘Good Trouble’
• All the Political Theater archives you could ever want