The thousands who flocked to the South Carolina State House Monday to commemorate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy received a message that the fight for civil rights and voting equality is not relegated to history books. NAACP leaders said that the state’s new voter I.D. law, which requires all voters to show certain government-issued photo I.D., goes against King’s principles of equality because the state’s registered minority voters are 20 percent more likely to be without the right I.D. and thus unable to cast ballots. NAACP president Benjamin Jealous said the law, and ones like it in other states, are the “greatest attack on voting rights since segregation.”
“When it comes to our right to vote we will not let any unjust law or misguided person turn us back,” Jealous said. Many in the sea of supporters likened the law to reconstruction-era Jim Crow laws that disenfranchised Southern blacks, holding signs that read “Voter ID = Poll Tax.”
The U.S. Department of Justice blocked the law in December, though South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and Attorney General Alan Wilson vowed to fight the decision in federal court.
Full Article: Voting Rights Center Stage At SC Capitol MLK Rally | WSPA.