Hillary Clinton: Jim Crow laws are at work in Alabama, restricting black voters,Hillary Clinton talked Jim Crow laws in her first public visit to Alabama as a 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, and was quick to bash the state for shuttering several driver’s license bureaus in predominately black neighborhoods. Reports Alabama.com on Oct. 17: “While Clinton also spoke of other main aspects of her platform, including equal pay for women, making college affordable and taking away tax benefits for drug companies, she used her speech at the Wynfrey Hotel in Hoover to highlight two important issues to black Alabama Democrats. The Alabama Democratic Conference is a primarily African-American organization that was formed in 1960 to mobilize the black vote for Democrats.”The former Secretary of State said she would put an end to racial discrimination in the justice department and be a champion for voting rights, then railed on the decision of the state of Alabama to close down bureaus in 31 counties – areas that are home to at least a 75 percent black population.
Alabama has a voter identification law; a driver’s license is the most common form of proof. No ID means no voting.
“It is hard to believe that we are back having this same debate about whether or not every American gets to vote,” Clinton told her supporters, calling that state’s enforcement of the decision “a blast from the Jim Crow past…I'm not picking on Alabama, I just think we got to stop this before it gets out of control. Believe me, they won't stop with rural counties and driver's license offices, right?”
Prior to the landmark legislation of the 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA), blacks in the south were excluded from polling by a number of discriminatory practices meant to disenfranchise racial minorities. Literacy tests, voter taxes and other impediments blocked the black vote.
“Now here in Alabama, without the right kind of ID, it’s nearly impossible to vote,” Clinton said. “And I followed when Governor Bentley and his administration announced plans this month to close 31 driver’s license offices across the state.”
Adds Raw Story: “Last year, in a 5-4 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court voted to gut a key provision of the Voting Rights Act. Since then, GOP-dominated states like Alabama have added obstacles to voting that have been criticized as intended to block African-American voters from exercising their right.”
“Fifty years after Rosa Parks sat, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. marched and John Lewis bled, it is hard to believe that we are back having this same debate about whether or not every American gets a chance to vote and exercise his rights,” Clinton said as the crowd cheered her on.
Clinton also used her voting rights platform to stump against her Republican challengers.
She said former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush supported the 2013 Shelby County v. Holder ruling, which found certain sections of the VRA unconstitutional. Clinton also singled out Marco Rubio, saying the Florida senator replied with “what’s the big deal,” about protections of the VRA being pared away.
“The idea that we don't need the [law] anymore ... that's like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you're not getting wet,” the 67-year-old Clinton said, paraphrasing a quote from liberal Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. “If the law is working we should let it keep working.”
“That's why we need to say very clearly that black lives matter here in America,” Clinton said, referring to the Black Lives Matter movement.
Sound off below: Opinions on Hillary Clinton and her reference to Jim Crow laws?
Blogger Comment
Facebook Comment