Rev. Jesse Jackson:
Voting Law is Modern-Day Equivalent of Jim Crow-Era Poll Taxes

Indiana's voter ID rule, others like it restrict access, the Rev. Jesse Jackson tells journalists 

COURTNEY EDELHART / Indianapolis Star 6aug2005

Atlanta — Thousands of marchers parade through Atlanta to mark the 40th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act.
Key provisions of the landmark civil rights legislation are set to expire in 2007 unless Congress renews them.
Photo: Tami Chappell/Reuters

[More below]

ATLANTA — The Rev. Jesse Jackson on Friday criticized Indiana's new voter identification law and similar laws around the country designed to decrease fraud.

Addressing members of the National Association of Black Journalists, whose annual meeting continues here through Sunday, Jackson said the growing number of such laws nationwide are the modern-day equivalent of Jim Crow-era poll taxes and restrict access to the ballot.

As of July 1, Indiana voters need to show a photo ID before voting. The Indiana Civil Liberties Union is fighting the new law, claiming it will prove a hardship for poor and elderly voters.

The issue should remind activists that the civil rights movement still is very much alive, Jackson added.

Jackson stopped by the convention while in town to participate in today's "Keep the Vote Alive" march and rally in Atlanta, commemorating the 40th anniversary of the signing of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

Supporters of Indiana's voter ID law say it's only a barrier to those who would cast a fraudulent ballot.

"This is a common sense approach to making sure not only that everybody's vote counts, but it counts only once," Indiana Secretary of State Todd Rokita told The Star in April.

The law allows impoverished voters to obtain a state ID card for free, supporters point out. Those with religious objections to being photographed, such as the Amish, can cast provisional ballots.

An angry Jackson also criticized the journalism group for putting him and other panel speakers in a remote meeting room of the Hyatt Regency Hotel, site of NABJ's 2005 convention. The room was hard to find and too small for the hundreds who came to hear the discussion.

Jackson also defended Bishop T.D. Jakes, who has been criticized for skipping the weekend's planned march even though the televangelist and his followers are in Atlanta for a religious meeting.

Calling such criticism a "diversion" and unfair, Jackson urged critics to focus their energy on reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act.

"The vote without protections is like a gun without the bullets," he said.

Jakes, pastor of The Potter's House, a Dallas church with more than 30,000 members, stopped by the convention Friday for a session on the rise and influence of megachurches. Jakes said he would have supported the march, but his event was scheduled a year ago and he owed it to registrants to keep that commitment.

Jakes stressed his support for voting rights, however, noting that his church had organized many voter registration drives over the years and would continue to do so. The black community owes it to the many martyrs who gave their lives for the vote to remain vigilant, he said.

Eboni Gatlin, 21, an Indiana University journalism student who was job-hunting at the convention, said she appreciated hearing Jackson and others recount the difficulty in getting the original Voting Rights Act passed and explaining its significance today.

"I think it's important to know these things because in school we miss out on a lot of our history," she said. "I do think a lot of the younger people are apathetic. I feel like a lot of them don't see a direct effect on their lives."

source: http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050806/NEWS06/508060487/1012/NEWS06 7aug2005

Civil Rights Icons Lead March To Urge Renewal of Voting Act

MAMIL R. HARRIS / Washington Post 7aug2005

ATLANTA, Aug. 6 — Thousands of marchers joined icons of the civil rights movement Saturday morning in the streets of Atlanta to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act and to build support for extending protections from that bill.

"Keep hope alive: Extend the Voting Rights Act," chanted Jesse L. Jackson, president of the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition and a march leader. He was joined by former Atlanta mayor Andrew Young, Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) and the Rev. Joseph Lowery, the former president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

The landmark law, several sections of which are set to expire in 2007, helped transform U.S. politics and led to rising numbers of minorities being elected to govern. But some conservatives have suggested that parts of the law are no longer necessary, especially the section that requires nine states and parts of several others, mainly in the South, to seek federal approval of voting rules changes. That section also mandates that states draw minority-controlled congressional districts if black and Hispanic voters dominate certain residential areas.

Some conservatives have also signaled that they hope to change a provision in the bill that requires election officials to assist immigrant voters who do not speak English by providing them with voting material in their native language. The provision, however, is not widely challenged because it benefits Asian Americans, Latinos, Armenians and others on both sides of the political divide.

The marchers Saturday also were protesting a new Georgia law that strictly limits which photo identification can be used by voters at the polls. March organizers estimated the crowd at a post-march rally at 10,000 to 15,000 people and said they hoped many of the more than 100,000 people attending a spiritual gathering led by a television evangelist, Bishop T.D. Jakes, would join them. Entertainers at the rally included Stevie Wonder, Roberta Flack and Willie Nelson.

"Voting rights cuts to the core values of this nation. Not only is it important that African Americans have the right to vote, but it is important that all Americans be concerned that our rights be protected," Jakes said in an interview Friday.

"Many people have died for us to have the right to vote. We can't lose that," said Carolyn Chester, 42, who works at an assisted-living facility in Baltimore and came to Atlanta by bus with a group sponsored by the Service Employees International Union.

The commemoration of the act was attracting attention elsewhere Saturday. Lewis, who was a key leader of the civil rights movement in the 1960s and participated in a 1965 protest in Selma, Ala., in which state troopers attacked marchers as they sought to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge, gave the Saturday Democratic radio address on the topic.

"We were beaten, tear-gassed and trampled by horses on that bridge," Lewis said. "We paid a price, but that's what it took to bring voting rights for people of color in America. The events of 'Bloody Sunday,' as it came to be known, aroused the conscience of the nation" and led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act.

He noted that there are 81 members of Congress of African American, Latino, Asian and Native American descent, and thousands of minorities in elected offices across the country.

"Our democracy depends on protecting the right of every American citizen to vote in every election," Lewis said. "We must honor the legacy of all who died in the struggle for civil rights."

Staff writer Darryl Fears contributed to this report.

Page A12

source: http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-08-06-votingrights_x.htm 7aug2005

More Than 10,000 Atlanta Marchers
Convene to Preserve Voting Rights Act

AP 6aug2005

ATLANTA — More than 10,000 marchers stormed Martin Luther King Jr. Drive and trekked through the historic Atlanta University Center chanting, singing and clapping on Saturday in support of extending the 40-year-old Voting Rights Act.

Participants head down Atlanta's Martin Luther King Blvd. during the Keep the Vote Alive March and Rally. By Barry Williams, Getty Images

Organizers hope the "Keep the Vote Alive" march will pressure Congress and President Bush to extend key provisions of the landmark law, which expires in 2007.

"Forty years later, we're still marching for the right to vote," said U.S. Rep. John Lewis, who participated in the civil rights struggles that helped secure passage of the law in 1965. "Don't give up, don't give in. Keep the faith, keep your eyes on the prize."

Activists from across the country — including Dick Gregory and Harry Belafonte — joined Lewis, NAACP President Bruce Gordon and the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who heads the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, at Saturday's demonstration.

"The most fundamental aspect of our democratic existence is at stake," Belafonte said as the march got underway. "We are the keepers of the gates of democracy ... We must stand vigilant, as there are those among us who would steal our liberty and steal our souls."

Gregory added that "there is nothing more important in America than the right to register" to vote, even if that right is never exercised. He also noted that he was marching Saturday in much safer times than four decades ago, when he and other demonstrators faced violent police opposition in Selma, Ala.

"We were scared then, but there is no fear here today," said Gregory.

Civil rights groups fear conservatives will try to modify two key provisions of the law. One requires nine states, mostly in the South, to get federal approval before changing voting rules. The other requires election officials to provide voting material in the native language of immigrant voters who don't speak English.

In the weekly Democratic radio address, Lewis said his party is committed to strengthening the sections of the law that are set to expire.

"Our democracy depends on protecting the right of every American citizen to vote in every election," Lewis said.

Many supporters preached education and awareness Saturday.

"The right to vote is not in danger, but we must protect it against discrimination," Jackson said at a rally at the end of the march.

Activists also used the rally to protest Georgia's recently passed voter identification law, which critics call the most restrictive in the country. NAACP President Gordon on Saturday called the law "the most outrageous, oppressive, discriminatory" law he'd ever seen.

If that bill is approved by the Department of Justice, Jackson warned on Friday, it could "spread like a virus" to other states. Rainbow/PUSH is among a list of objectors that have urged the Department of Justice not to approve the law.

Demonstrators braved the heat and humidity for three hours early Saturday morning before the march began.

The hourlong hike to Morris Brown College's Herndon Stadium got off in fits and starts as the media clamored to photograph high-profile participants like Jackson, country singer Willie Nelson and the Rev. Joseph Lowery, the former Southern Christian Leadership Conference president.

Jerky and disconnected at times, the crowd — which Atlanta Police estimate numbered between 10,000 and 15,000 marchers — was buoyed by marching bands and songs from the civil rights era.

Supporters who filled the stadium bleachers at the march's end were entertained by Stevie Wonder and greeted by members of Congress, civil rights activists and religious leaders who helped organize the event.

Many of the organizers marched alongside their constituents, including Gordon, who was attending his first march after only a week as NAACP leader.

"People need to understand if this act is not reauthorized and improved, we will lose the progress of the last 40 years," he said.

source: http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-08-06-votingrights_x.htm 7aug2005