The 1965 Voting Rights Act guarantees that no person can be denied the right to vote on the grounds of race or color.

While most of this important civil rights legislation is permanent, several parts up for renewal, requiring actual monitoring of elections in known trouble spots, could have expired in 2007.

But a recent Congressional announcement to renew the Act has been announced, with support coming from both sides of the political aisles.

Named the "Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks and Coretta Scott King Reauthorization and Amendments Act of 2006," the bill honors three deceased heroines of the civil rights era.

"John Conyers of Michigan, the ranking Democrat on the committee, said the Voting Rights Act was the "crown jewel" of the civil rights legislation passed in the 1960s," reported The African Voice.

WHILE MOST CIVIL RIGHTS observers would quickly recognize the names of King and Parks, others may not be as familiar with the Mississippi Delta