Obama: VRA decision 'small-bore stuff compared to lynching'
The setback from the Supreme Court’s decision striking down elements of the Voting Rights Act is bad, but not as daunting hurdles from past generations, President Barack Obama told a White House gathering of civil rights leaders Monday.
“He said, ‘When you think about it, this is small-bore stuff compared to lynching and shootings and killings that happened 50 years ago,’” one participant in the meeting told POLITICO. “He said, ‘Ultimately this is within our power to change.’”
Obama told the group of about 15 civil rights leaders that it will be incumbent upon alert the Justice Department flag violations of what’s left of the Voting Rights Act, since the Supreme Court found the law’s preclearance requirements unconstitutional.
“They assured us that the Voting Rights Act may have been wounded but it’s not dead, it’s not even on critical,” said the Rev. Al Sharpton, the MSNBC host and National Action Network president. “There are other sections of the Voting Rights Act that the Justice Department can still enforce.”
more: http://www.politico.com/politico44/2013/07/obama-vra-decision-smallbore-stuff-compared-to-lynching-169443.html?hp=l2