With no pre-clearance, voting rules will very soon (the NC legislature is already gleeful with voting restriction bills that they are running over each other to put in place) take us back to a time when there is no protection for the rights of the minority and disenfrancised citizen. There is a really big gap in US history classes that misses the fact that between 1863 and 1965, not much changed (or remained changed) for the hardly any of the black citizens in the South. They were technically "free", but could not walk on the sidewalks equal with their white neighbors, they could not even apply for most jobs, and a host of other rules and regulations, enacted after Reconstruction, for the "good" of society, supposedly black and white. In the early 1870s, blacks in the south voted and held property, jobs and an illusion of moving toward being a whole citizen. In a very few short years, those rights were a distant memory. It was an abuse of power by the majority then, and we as human beings have not changed. Protection of the rights of minority citizens to be part of their government is the hallmark of the American way... it is in danger again, same as it was after Reconstruction came to a close, when it was judged that America had "changed" and Reconstruction was no longer needed.
Posted on: Wed, 26 Jun 2013 02:13:20 +0000
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