Section 5 of the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965 has achieved iconic status among civil rights enthusiasts for one reason: It has done what it was designed to do.

While Section 2 of the act made the somewhat murky pronouncement that “minority voting strength may not be diluted,” Section 5 provided the muscle to break Jim Crow’s stranglehold in Mississippi and other places where methods of preserving white power were legion.

Section 5 required a U.S. Justice Department preview of each and every state and local action affecting voting, no matter how major — such as redistricting an entire state for legislative seats — or how minor — such as changing the color of the paper used to print a town’s voter registration form.

A minuscule matter now has Section 5 before the U.S. Supreme Court for possible deletion by order of the court. The plaintiff is the Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District. It is a suburban water company in Texas. Due to Section 5, though, it faced the expense of asking the Justice Department if it could hold its board election in a school instead of the private home used previously.

Had the Justice Department determined the company wanted to move voting to discourage minorities or if minorities would have been disadvantaged, regardless of any intent, the application would have been rejected. Then, it would have been up to the utility to convince the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia otherwise.

While it’s overkill to believe the power of the U.S. Justice Department is needed to assure that where a water club holds elections isn’t part of a racist scheme, it’s fair to say that Section 5, in other applications, has transformed the nation.

Before the Voting Rights Act, localities set the rules. They still do, but Section 5 applies the yardstick of racial fairness in advance.

It’s a myth that black Mississippians were denied, by law, the right to vote before the Civil Rights Movement. Legally, they were as entitled as anybody.

But in addition to intimidation, obstacles were created at two levels.

For individuals, there were literacy tests with white clerks as the pass-fail judges and the poll tax, a fee of $2 per year that kept poor whites from voting, too.

For blacks as a group, the discrimination took a less obvious form. For instance, when lines were drawn for electing five supervisors in a Mississippi County, care was taken so that black residents didn’t compose a majority in any district. Same for judgeships and seats in the Legislature and Congress. In cities, council members or aldermen were elected “at large” as long as white voters outnumbered blacks. That way, assuming voting strictly along racial lines, it was safe to assume no black candidate stood a chance of winning.

Once Section 2 declared such “dilution” illegal, Section 5 gave federal authorities to veto any plan that did not empower minorities. The Justice Department could not draw voting lines, but it could keep rejecting and rejecting. It took some Mississippi cities and towns more than 10 years to see the light. The first black member of Congress from this state wasn’t elected until 1986.

One aspect of Section 5 that irritates people is that it doesn’t apply nationwide, just in places where discrimination has been notorious. Fact is, the KKK is these days more active outside the South. That racism has no single home was implicit in a question posed by Chief Justice John Roberts. “Are Southerners more likely to discriminate than Northerners?” Roberts asked, with his skepticism showing.

Another claim is that we are “cured.” How can Mississippi, which has long been No. 1 in black people elected to office, be accused of excluding blacks? When a nation with a 12 percent black population elects a black president, hasn’t the sun set on the need for continuing to look over the shoulders of past transgressors?

The rejoinder from those supporting Section 5’s continued existence is, “Yes, because Barack Obama did not have the support of most white voters in the South.”

Therein, they miss the point entirely. The Voting Rights Act never pretended it could change people’s minds or decide their political views. Its sole purpose was to end one set of barriers by creating others.

Section 5’s enduring effect will be the colorization of politics we have today. Today, we candidly use the terms “black district” and “white district,” which opens a whole new web of issues. Are black people in white districts marginalized? Are white people in black districts represented?

Whether Section 5 is whacked by the Supreme Court or not, we’ll be dealing with matters of race for generations.