Voting rights target of 12th Moral Monday protest
Posted: Monday, July 22, 2013 10:50 pm
Updated: 11:23 pm, Mon Jul 22, 2013.
Arika Herron
Winston-Salem Journal
... Using language reminiscent of the voting rights protests of the 1960s, the Rev. William Barber, president of the North Carolina NAACP, told Moral Monday supporters that the voting rights bill that passed the House earlier this week is unfairly targeting minorities, students and the elderly. Barber said the bill would create a new generation of Jim Crow laws ...
The means by which legislators are attempting to restrict voting rights are, of course, different, said Chuck Fager. He knows firsthand what the situation was like in Selma during the 1965 marches. He was there, arrested while protesting for the voting rights of others. It was disheartening, he said, to be doing the same thing Monday.
“It’s a major setback,” said Fager, now a resident of Durham. “You can blow something up a lot faster than you can rebuild it.”
Changes to voting rules are expected to be approved by the GOP majority later this week. Those include provisions requiring voters to present a state-issued photo ID at the polls and curtailing early voting days, as well as a measure that would force parents of college students to pay more in taxes if their children vote in the communities where they go to school. Supporters have said the measures are intended to fight voter fraud. Critics said all are designed to keep groups more likely to cast their ballots for Democrats from voting ...
http://www.journalnow.com/news/state_region/article_aa5d6866-f342-11e2-b632-0019bb30f31a.html
