Kirk Watson: “I was appalled and shocked that we are dealing with something that was outlawed, we thought, by the Voting Rights Act of…”

“I was appalled and shocked that we are dealing with something that was outlawed, we thought, by the Voting Rights Act of 1965. But we always have to be awakened to the facts and realities in which we live, that racism is not dead in this country; it just takes a different position, a different posture. So despite the gains that we have made in securing our right to vote, new roadblocks have been successfully erected, including diluting the African-American vote by switching to an at-large election, preventing African-Americans from becoming candidates or obtaining office, voter fraud, the discriminatory selection of election officials, denying African-Americans access to precinct meetings and the harassment and outright exclusion of African-Americans from polling places.”