Washington, D.C. - Black conservatives affiliated with the Project 21 leadership network are unimpressed with President Barack Obama's progress during his three years in office. They say Obama's State of the Union address tonight was long on rhetoric and short in presenting a strategy to fix the stagnant American economy that has not improved under his leadership.

This year, on the day our nation celebrated Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., I proudly stood alongside NAACP State Conference presidents on the steps of the capitol building in Columbia, South Carolina for the annual King Day at the Dome March and Rally. The event has grown into a massive commemoration over the years, but this year it took on a new significance as Attorney General Eric Holder joined the commemoration, honoring Dr. King and pledging to carry forward his mission in the years ahead.

Looking out over the crowd of thousands, I reflected on how Dr. King risked everything to advance civil and human rights in America. How, despite repeated threats against his life, he spread the message of non-violent civil disobedience against unjust laws throughout the Jim Crow South and our nation as a whole.

Dr. King’s leadership has inspired Americans to win big victories that have moved our nation closer to the long-expressed, but yet-unrealized ideal that our school children repeat every day: we are "one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

Yet today, one of the greatest victories Dr. King helped win during his lifetime is under withering attack: The Voting Rights Act and the rights it protects – for all Americans to be able to participate in free and fair elections. South Carolina has become ground zero in this battle.