Voting Rights Act 50th Anniv., Bernie Sanders: "We Must Fight Back Against Voter Suppression", Today
Video, 6 mins., Sen. Sanders today, "We Must Fight Back Against Voter Suppression", the National Mall, Washington, DC.
Today, Aug. 6, Sen. Bernie Sanders spoke on the National Mall in Washington, DC at the 50th Anniversary celebration of the Voting Rights Act signed into law Aug. 6, 1965 by President Lyndon B. Johnson.
The event was held at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial on the Mall, and was hosted by leading Civil Rights organizations and individuals including Martin Luther King III. NAACP President and CEO, Cornell Williams Brooks also called for sweeping reforms of how federal elections are conducted now.
In 2013, the US Supreme Court decision to nullify a clause in the original VRA which required certain states with histories of racial discrimination in voting to obtain federal approval before changing election laws, has increased voting restrictions in the US. Since then states have passed limitations on voting allegedly against voter fraud, which include the elimination of same day voting, closing early voting windows and requiring Photo IDs to cast a ballot.
Sen. Sanders emphasized that in the last election, 2014, 63% of Americans did not vote. That year, 2014, 80% of young people and 75% of low income working people did not vote, and this is impairing democracy he stated.
The Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial was dedicated on the National Mall in Washington, DC in 2011. Placed between the Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials and facing the Tidal Basin, the 30-foot granite statue commemorating Dr. King is inscribed with 16 quotations of the everlasting and memorable American and Civil Rights leader. (Video, 3mins.).
The Hill, "Sanders Attacks 'Political Cowards' Pushing Tougher Voting Rights Laws", Aug. 6, 2015.
http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/250464-sanders-attacks-political-cowards-pushing-tougher-voting-rights-laws
Wiki, The Voting Rights Act, VRA, 1965
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_Rights_Act_of_1965
= new reply since forum marked as read
I can see why people like this guy
seen one like him. Voter apathy and recent voter suppression rules impacting blacks, PoC, the young, poor and elders are regressive and undemocratic. It echoes the 1930s and 1950s at times esp. new measures like driver's licenses that require costly birth certificates and other documentation-- like a POLL TAX as Rep. John Lewis said. It's new Jim Crow era manoeuvering. Recent restrictions to voting like the elimination of early voting and same day voting in many places and states are aimed at making voting difficult as well. Hillary Clinton has also been bringing up these voting issues lately.
In the US longtime barriers to the enfranchisement- exercising of the right to vote of blacks, native Americans, poor whites and others included poll taxes, literacy tests and illegal intimidation. These discriminatory practices were widespread in the South and West 1880 - 1960s. LBJ's passage of the VRA in 1965 was a landmark decision to eradicate voting obstruction and is now being eroded by the 2013 SC decision and right wing extremism.
- Wiki, US Poll Tax
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poll_tax_(United_States)
Poll taxes were used in the South to prevent blacks from voting 1880-1960s during Jim Crow.
One common poll tax was to levy a fee, or tax if your grandfather had not voted prior to the abolition of slavery during the Civil War.
- 1932 Alabama Poll Tax Receipt, SPLC (Southern Poverty Law Center)
- Wiki, US Voter Literacy Tests
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literacy_test
- Literacy Test given to black voters in 1960s Louisiana, designed to confuse voters and of no relevance to being a citizen.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_vault/2013/06/28/voting_rights_and_the_supreme_court_the_impossible_literacy_test_louisiana.html
Slate, "2013 Voting Rights Act and the Supreme Court, Impossible Literacy Test Used in Louisiana, 1960s", 6/28/13.
