GOPers Are Bringing Back Post-Reconstruction-Era Voting In N.C.
History Repeating.
Come on America, get it together.
Starting at the end of Reconstruction following the Civil War, North Carolina and other states used official and unofficial means to stop poor and black citizens from voting. North Carolinas 1900 constitution required that voters pay a poll tax and be judged as literate by the local voter registrar, who could choose tough questions for some voters and easy questions or none for others. The constitution also included a grandfather clause that exempted from the poll tax those entitled to vote as of January 1, 1867. Between 1896 and 1904, nearly all black voters, including many thousands who had voted before, were removed from the voting rolls, and nearly all black officials were driven from office.
It took 70 years for the federal government to end these practices with the 24th Amendment to and the 1965 Voting Rights Act. But since the Supreme Court struck down in 2013 a crucial tenet of the Voting Rights Act, it has become all too easy for an extremely conservative legislature like North Carolinas to roll out its voter suppression agenda.
History Repeating.
Come on America, get it together.