In the News

By Rebecca S. Rivas 

The basic right to vote is under attack by “James Crow Jr. Esquire,” said the Rev. Al Sharpton, who spoke at Harris-Stowe State University Friday as part of a conference on voting rights.

 

When thousands marched from Selma to Montgomery in 1965, “they were fighting Jim Crow,” Sharpton said. “Today we are fighting James Crow Jr. Esquire. He’s a little more polished than his daddy. He talks in a more refined way. But the results and the goals are the same.”

Sharpton kicked off the “Voting Rights Symposium: Protecting Our Most Fundamental Constitutional Right” event, organized by U.S. Rep. Wm. Lacy Clay, the university, NAACP and the Advancement Project.

 

At the same time Sharpton was riling up the crowd of 200 on Friday, a Missouri judge was hearing a lawsuit against a proposed amendment (SJR 2) to the Missouri Constitution that would require voters to show state-issued identification. It’s set to appear on the November ballot.

Missouri’s amendment falls in line with laws that states across the country have passed to make it harder for Americans – particularly African-Americans, the elderly, students and people with disabilities – to exercise their fundamental right to cast a ballot, he said. These measures include requiring a government-issued photo ID to vote and proof of citizenship to register, cutting back on early voting and adding additional barriers to voting for people with criminal convictions.

 

“Many of us don’t respond to civil rights unless it is bloody,” Sharpton said. “When we talk about things like this, it is hard to energize us because we do not understand the complexity of the issue. First thing we need to understand is they purposely make it complex because they depend on the complexity to bring down the energy level of resistance.”

 

But the issue at hand is pretty simple, Sharpton said. It’s an attempt to disenfranchise a potential 5 millions voters around the country.

Clay: ‘It’s a dirty campaign’

 

If civil rights activists cannot defeat the amendment in court and it passes in November, 254,000 Missourians may not be able to vote in the next election because they don’t have a state-issued photo ID, said Congressman Clay.

 

“It’s going to rob us of our constitutional right to have access to the ballot,” said Clay. “It’s a dirty campaign.”

 

Out of 300 million eligible voters, there were 87 cases of voter fraud from 2002 to 2005, said U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver II, chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus. And in these cases the problems occurred during registration, when people provided false information.

“This legislation doesn’t deal with those problems,” Cleaver said. “This is one of the most embarrassing moments in our nation.”

 

Wisconsin is one of the states that passed a voter ID law. In 2008, President Obama won in Wisconsin by 414,000 votes. Right now in Wisconsin, there are 475,000 people who don’t have the kind of ID required by the new law, said U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore of Wisconsin.

 

In 2008, a large number of young African Americans came out to the polls, she said. Yet they might be barricaded in the future.

 

“This is an unbelievable statistic, but it’s true,” she said. “Seventy-eight percent of African-American males between ages of 18 and 24 don’t have the strict kind of ID that’s required in Wisconsin.”

State-issued IDs cost money, and for some, require an extensive process to obtain, said state Rep. Stacey Newman, who has led the fight against voter ID in the Missouri Legislature. Under our current laws, all voters are already vetted extensively before they ever get to the polls, Newman said.

Jones: $3M on fake fraud

State Rep. Tishaura O. Jones said that in a budget year where state legislators are asked to cut $500 million from health care and education, why would they want to spend an estimated $3 to $7 million on a implementing plan against “fraud” that doesn’t exist in the state?

 

“We can’t even fund our higher education,” Jones said.

 

Sharpton challenged the crowd to stand up and fight.

 

“We are asking you to protect what has been given to you,” he said, “and you don’t have enough time and enough consciousness to protect something that made your life better?”

 

On March 12, the Justice Department rejected Texas’ new voter ID law, saying it could disproportionately harm Latinos under the federal Voting Rights Act. The same day, a judge blocked a similar law in Wisconsin. The U.S. Justice Department also halted another in South Carolina in December. Civil rights advocates –  including the ACLU and NAACP – have worked tirelessly to challenge the laws.

 

“The reason they are bold is because we are not fighting back,” Sharpton said. “Rabbit hunting isn’t fun when the rabbit’s got the gun.”

 

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