The Legacy
The legacy of these laws impact communities of color in ways only reflected in our Jim Crow past. 25% of African-Americans, 16% of Hispanics, and 18% of elderly voters do not have the government issued ID. This is despite the 11% of Americans who lack it looking at voter-ID laws alone. We are now seeing a war on voting that can only be compared with the dark, discriminatory past of the Jim Crow Era. In 1950 the Supreme court ruled that the Univ. of Texas must admit a black, Herman Sweatt, to the law school, on the grounds, the state did not provide equal education for him. This was followed(1954) by the Supreme court decision in Brown v. Board of education of Topeka, Kans., declaring separate facilities to be unconstitutional. A march in Washington by over 200,000 in 1963 dramatized the movement to end Jim Crow.
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