Kirk Watson: “In a Nation where children are taught at the earliest age that every citizen has the right to vote, it would be…”

“In a Nation where children are taught at the earliest age that every citizen has the right to vote, it would be comforting to know that the last vestiges of voter intimidation, oppression and suppression have been swept away by the passage and the enforcement of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The facts, however, are discomforting. In every national election since reconstruction, in every election since the Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965, voters, and particularly African Americans and other minorities, have faced calculated and determined efforts at intimidation and suppression, both above and below the Mason Dixon line, from California to Maine to Texas to Montana. Overt, and often violent, voter participation in the era of Jim Crow now has been replaced by more subtle, but often just as intimidating, tactics. Gone are the days of poll taxes and literacy tests. Today, intimidation, threats, innuendo and deception are often more used to discourage voter turnout.”