Print PDF

The Pragmatic Pundit has an absolute must piece read on the history of voter disenfranchisement in the US and the GOP’s efforts to re-institute and reinforce Jim Crow. This article contains the best summation of the past four years that I have seen. Here’s an excerpt, but be sure to read the entire piece:

During Reconstruction, former slaves were granted the right to vote by an Act of Congress. In Mississippi, African Americans registered and flooded the polls, electing Blacks to many local offices and over a dozen Black men to the United States Congress, in what was called the Black and Tan Revolution. A likely outcome, since former slaves far outnumbered the white population.

In response, Whites promoted the idea that Blacks had ascended to office only through means of fraud and corruption. A new state constitution was written stating that:

“Negroes were denied the right to vote because as long as they had voted, corruption and fraud had characterized government in the state of Mississippi….To restore “purity” to the governance of the state of Mississippi, Blacks must no longer be allowed to vote.”

The response of many whites to the election of the first Black man to the presidency, was not unlike that of whites in Reconstruction Mississippi. Just as they had accused Blacks of corrupting the vote in 1875, after the election of Barack Obama, the exact same allegations ensued.

Five years after the Bush administration began a crackdown on voter fraud, the Justice Department turned up virtually no evidence of any organized effort to skew federal elections. Still, the indictment of ACORN set the stage for the bogus claims of voter fraud.

The idea was to destroy a Democratic support system and delegitimize the election of the first Black president. He’d stolen the White House. Show us your papers, Barack. As Rep. Sue Burmeister of Georgia told the Justice Department, a voter’s ID bill would keep more African Americans from voting, which was fine with her since “if there are fewer Black voters because of this bill, it will only be because there is less opportunity for fraud.

(18)