“America cannot forget the sorrow of those who died for this precious right to vote.”

The Associated Press

In Ohio’s decade-old voting lawsuit, federal appeals Judge Damon Keith said he was “deeply saddened and distraught” with a majority opinion last month and filled 11 pages with photographs of those slain in the fight for civil rights.

Black and white faces of men, women and children—activists, students, a minister, a housewife—stare out from the pages in a rarely seen visual statement in court opinions.

“I will not forget,” wrote Keith, who is 94. “I cannot forget—indeed America cannot forget—the pain, suffering, and sorrow of those who died for equal protection and for this precious right to vote.”

Keith is one of several black judges involved in the state’s longest-running voting lawsuit who have voiced powerful reminders of the struggles of the civil rights movement. Their filings, often contrary to the court’s majority opinion, have gotten little attention as lawyers, journalists and election officials focus on the legal technicalities of each new decision.

With days before another presidential election, advocates for the homeless and the Ohio Democratic Party are weighing an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court after the 6th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals sided with Republican Secretary of State Jon Husted on Oct. 6 and declined to revisit a three-judge panel decision before all 15 circuit judges. Keith had been the lone dissenter on the panel.

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