Opening Speaker for the Teabagging convention suggests racist tactics for voting

[LynneSin]

http://rawstory.com/2010/02/tea-party-opening-speaker-suggests-blacks-voting/

Tea party opening speaker suggests blacks be kept from voting

The opening night speaker at the Tea Party convention suggested a return to a "literacy test" to protect America from presidents like Obama -- a segregation-era method employed by southern US states to keep blacks from voting.

In his speech Thursday to attendees, former Republican congressman Tom Tancredo invoked the loaded pre-civil rights era buzzword, saying that President Barack Obama was elected because "we do not have a civics, literacy test before people can vote in this country."

Southern states used literacy tests as part of an effort to deny suffrage to African American voters prior to Johnson-era civil rights laws.

"Prior to passage of the federal Voting Rights Act in 1965, Southern (and some Western) states maintained elaborate voter registration procedures whose primary purpose was to deny the vote to those who were not white," a website for civil rights veterans explains. "In the South, this process was often called the 'literacy test.' In fact, it was much more than a simple test, it was an entire complex system devoted to denying African-Americans (and in some regions, Latinos) the right to vote."

"Because the Freedom Movement was running "Citizenship Schools" to help people learn how to fill out the forms and pass the test, Alabama changed the test 4 times in less than two years (1964-1965)," the site adds. "At the time of the Selma Voting Rights campaign there were actually 100 different tests in use across the state. In theory, each applicant was supposed to be given one at random from a big loose-leaf binder. In real life, some individual tests were easier than others and the registrar made sure that Black applicants got the hardest ones."

[dionysus]

1. wonderful

:puke:

[Drum]

2. Hey Teabaggers, your slip is showing.... n/t

[Mopar151]

7. 'Slip" is that a polite way to say "ASS"? n/t

[Raschel]

12. Or hood?

[Jennicut]

3. I think the teabaggers themselves could use some literacy tests. Not the brightest bulbs around.

[Froward69]

4. Tancredo is and always has been a racist

Just the fact. A blight on Colorado and the nation.

rec as this needs to be brought into the light.

[Brewman_Jax]

5. No surprise there

"but we aren't racists!" claim the teabaggers. GMAFB! :eyes: :puke:

[CBR]

6. Good God. Unbelievable. nt

On Edit: I am sure glad we decided not to "partner with them." :eyes:

[old mark]

8. Hell, if it's a spelling test, half the 'baggers won't be able to vote.

I forget how long ago the civil rights movement was, and how few people even remember it or know about it today.

I wish the left had even a fraction of that energy today...we can't even seem to get people out to vote anymore.
rec.
mark

[Gidney N Cloyd]

9. Teabaggers should be careful what they wish for.

[iceman66]

18. Exactly.

If only educated people could vote, there wouldn't be a lot of Republicans holding national office!

[Winterblues]

10. They really do not like the Constitution at all do they?

:shrug:

[LeftHander]

11. another toothless racist idiot...nt

[quiet.american]

13. Any bets that this will be completely ignored by MSM, in favor of the "angry populism" angle? nt

[Tommy_Carcetti]

14. Of course. Because, you know, it's all a very "genteel" affair.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20100205/us_time/08599196040800

[quiet.american]

15. Ugh! And I guess it wouldn't be complete without the "tea bag pendants for $89.99," too. nt

[Maraya1969]

16. Someone has to have a video.

[bvar22]

17. A genuine "Literacy Test"...

...would ensure Democratic Party Dominance (or maybe even a genuinely Liberal 3rd Party).

Sarah Palin would not be able to vote, much less her supporters.