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1 DAVI7 12/01/12 **CHILL UNC-CH SERIALS DEPARTMENT DAVIS LIBRARY CB# 39353 208 RALEIGH STREET CHAPEL HILL NC £7599-0001 OrCar UME 92 - NUMBER 33 DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA - SATURDAY, AUGUST 17, 2013 TELEPHONE (919) 682-2913 PRICE: 30 VC governor signs measure requiring voter ID ly Tom Foreman Jr. ARLOTTE (AP) - North la’s governor on Aug. 12 signed a measure into law verhauls the state's elec- ws to require government- photo IDs at the polls orten early voting, moves ew stinging criticism and of legal action from the 'P and other groups. American Civil Liberties joined two other groups in icing that they were filing suit against key parts of the package, hours after Repub lican Gov. Pat McCrory signaled in a statement he had signed it without a ceremony and without journalists present. Republicans lawmakers who backed the measure said it was meant to prevent voter fraud, which they allege is both ram pant and undetected in North Carolina. Independent voting rights groups joined Democrats and libertarians in suggesting the true goal was to suppress voter turnout, especially among tradi tional Democratic constituencies such as blacks, the young, the el derly and the poor. "It is a trampling on the blood, sweat and tears of the martyrs - black and white - who fought for voting rights in this country." said the Rev. William Barber, president of the state chapter of the NAACP. which is pressing its own legal challenge. "It puts McCrory on the wrong NC NAACP President Announces Groundbreaking Lawsuit Against Voter Suppression Law Statement by Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, 11 President NC NAACP Read at News Conference on August 13. in Durham. terday on the 15th installment of Moral Monday, anticipating that the Governor would follow and v to the actions of the extreme and immoral ultra regressive Republican majority of the General bly, we chose not to have a Moral Monday protest in the state but to do what the NAACP and Monday Movement has promised and that is to have a legal strategy to fight asainst this General bly that we believed was constitutionally inconsistent and morally Indefensible And so vesterday ;ust 12, 2013, 48 years after the signing of the Voting Rights Act. nearly 50 vears after the March ihington, and 143 years after the ratification of the 15th amendment to the US Constitution which d into law that the "right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by ited States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude", the NC P on behalf of all our branches and members filed a complaint, along with Mrs. Rosanell Eaton, icr plaintifts including Mrs. Carolyn Q. Coleman and Mrs. Mary Perry soon to be added, against vernor of North Carolina in Middle District Federal Court. legal challenge is filed by the North Carolina NAACP: strong and knowledgeable North Carolina ys Adam Stein and Irving Joyner; The Advancement Project, a premier national civil rights orsa- i led by Atty. Penda Hair; and the law firm of Kirkland & Ellis, along with Atty. Jamie Phillips and I McSurely. It charges that the law violates Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. which bans voting ares that discriminate on the basis of race, color, or membership in one of the language minority The suit also challenges the law under the 14th and 15th Amendments of the U.S?Constitution. ; bill is not just about voter ID requirements. It is 57 pages of regressive, unconstitutional acts to ria nipulate elections through voter suppression. Our law suit will show how this voter suppression ts many eerie elements, revisits the tactics of Jim Crow in the 21st century are a form of what we illed for months James Crow Esquire tactics because each suppression tactic has a disproportion- parate. and discriminatory impact especially on African Americans and other minorities. This act legislature and Governor is about race, an outright attempt to manipulate voting and the result of through suppressing the African American vote and the votes of others that expand the electorate > not often favorable to the support of a narrow and extreme political agenda. an attempt to undermine fusion coalition political alliances in the New South between African ans. other minorities and progressive Whites - which is why from Mitchell County in the moun- Martin County in the Eastern Black Belt. North Carolinians are outraged by these actions. NC NAACP and the hundreds of thousands of North Carolinians who are looking to the Forward ;r Movement to expose the shameful acts of the extremists in the General Assembly, was the first lawsuit after Gov. McCrory signed it privately. To add further insult and shame to this shameful 3 96 sec ° n d v 'd eo filled with false accusations and misrepresentations of what is in this cerning rights it took nearly 200 years to secure and protect from abridgement, in 96 seconds this or gave a pitiful, untruthful rationale for undermining our rights. The Governor, who supported ned some of the most divisive legislation in North Carolina history, called us divisive. This Gov- laimed this bill is about voter integrity, knowing full well it has nothing to do with integrity and ing to do with keeping his opponents from voting. This Governor claimed the law is about voter wing full well (if he read it) that the Senate threw in all the ALEC-drafted voter suppression laws find to strip every vote it could strip, from minorities and others who don't support his extremist ;. And he called this.measure common sense legislation. We would call it common. Considering ; of the synonyms for common is vulgar - lacking sophistication or good taste; unrefined: "the trappings of wealth". His actions are a vulgar misuse of political power designed to manipulate elections.' ernor Pat McCrory and the North Carolina Legislature are on the wrong side of history . This bill ist democracy and our most sacred constitutional values. This Anti-Voting Rights Bill tramples ilbod of our martyrs, desecrates the graves of freedom fighters, and in thesis? Century lines up ; extreme racially-driven philosophy of interposition and nullification promoted by past political like George Wallace and Strom Thurmond. Monster Bill is a direct attempt to suppress the civil rights of black people in North Carolina and e power through manipulation of the electorate are the ultimate crimes against democracy, driven .‘mists in our state. For the Governor to sign this horrific bill less than a week after Julius Cham- s laid to rest is dishonorable. w years ago the NC General Assembly passed the most race-based redistrictine plan we had seen e 19th century after US Congressman Patrick McHenry openly acknowledged in the press that the ican Party would in fact use race in designing its redistrictingplan. Now this atrocious voter sup- i bill the Governor signed, which represents the worst of every voting rights attack in the nation ed in one piece of legislation, seeks to end same day registration. limits'earlv votinu. unleashes e poll observers, undoes public financing, disallows 16 and 17 year olds the ability to pre-register, idates a 21st century poll tax in the name of voter ID. is more restrictive than South Carolina and a. As Bob Hall of Democracy NC. one of our fact advisors and documenters in this suit has noted Monster Bill when it comes to voter suppression. Our attorney s will explain factually and statisti- e data that supports this claim. ould be noted that after denying Medicaid to 500.000. unemployment to 170.000. earned income lits to 900.000, changing the tax codes of NC to favor the wealthy, attacking public education, g public school teachers, attacking women's rights, labor rights, and over-expanding min rights, s group of extremist want to manipulate and cheat their way into and hold onto political power. ;ms as though this legislature and the Governor view the Supreme Court's Shelby decision in the ay the radicals of the South viewed the removal of the soldiers and sailors in 1877. Immediately it, southern legislatures began to pass all forms of voter suppression and Jim Crow laws. We are leaning groups. We challenge this bill because we are civil rights centered, constitutionally cen- id morally centered. 14th, 15th, and 24th amendments, and Section 2, 3 and 5 of the Voting Rights Act are still the law ind. We will fight this race-based, immoral and regressive bill with every thing we have. We beat We beat Jim Crow, even with a Supreme Court stacked against us. We will win attain! side of history." North Carolina, a state with a past history of centrist poli- tics. has drawn national attention since the GOP-led legislature that took power in 2010 pushed through the election law changes in the final days of the 2013 ses sion. On Aug. 12, former Secre- tary of State Hillary Clinton said the North Carolina election law amounted to "the greatest hits of voter suppression." She ad dressed the issue of voting rights during a speech at the American Bar Association meeting in San Francisco. Passage of the North Carolina measure last month followed the U.S. Supreme Court's 5-4 decision in June to effectively halt the enforcement provisions of the landmark Voting Rights Act, enacted to outlayv racial discrimination against voters. North Carolina was among the states, mostly in the South, that were subjected to special federal enforcement, with requirements to get approval in advance be fore they could make even minor changes to voting layvs. That high court ruling cleared the way for North Carolina's Republican leadership to enact voting layv changes yvithout prior federal approval. Barber called the Republican- backed measure one of the worst attempts in the nation at voting reform. He said the National As sociation for the Advancement of Colored People considered the package an all-out attack on existing laws long seen as a model of voter participation. The package would take ef fect in 2016. It requires voters to present government-issued pho to IDs at the polls and shortens early voting by a yveek. from 17 days to 10. It also ends same-day registration, requiring voters to register, update their address or make any other needed changes at least 25 day s ahead of an flec tion. A high school civics pro gram that registers tens of thou sands of students to vote each year in advance of their 18th birthdays has been eliminated. A provision also would end straight-ticket voting, in place in the state since 1925. Critics said disclosure re quirements intended to make clear who is underwriting cam paign ads also would be weak ened. and note that political par ties would be allowed to take in unlimited corporate donations. The cap on individual campaign donations also would rise from $4,000 to $5,000. McCrory, who announced the sighing in a statement, ap peared in a 95-second message on YouTube giving his reasons and focusing solely on the voter identification component. The first-term governor cited layvs that require people ’to pres ent photo IDs to board airplanes, cash a check or apply for govern ment benefits. "Our right to vote deserves similar protection." McCrory said in the video. The governor's video mes sage also took aim at opponents. "Many of those from the ex treme left who have been criti cizing photo ID are using scare tactics." McCrory said. "They 're more interested in divisive poli tics than ensuring that no one's vote is disenfranchised by fraud ulent ballots." McCrory, a former Charlotte mayor who ran as a moderate but now shares poyver w ith con servatives who control the state -legislature, also assailed critics (Continued On Page 2) REV. DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. Many Events March on Washington By George E. Curry NNPA Editor-in-chief WASHINGTON (NNPA) - In addition to the long- planned March on Washington scheduled for Saturday. Aug. 24. the White House has announced that President Obama will speak at a commemorative service at the Lin coln Memorial on Aug. 28. the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Justice. "National Action to Realize the Dream March" on Aug. 24 will be co-chaired by Al Sharpton and Martin Luther King. III. According the list of speakers announced thus tar. it will be held in the spirit of the original march. On the other hand, the King Center in Atlanta, headed by Bernice King, is more commemorative. It is celebrating Dr. King's "I Have a Dream" speech by asking communi ties to organize "Let Freedom Ring" bell-ringing events on Aug. 28 at 3 p.m. Eastern Standard Time to observe the exact time Dr. King deliv ered his historic address. The Let Freedom Ring "commemoration and call to action " will be held on the National Mall in Washington. D.C. on August 28. The program begins with an interfaith service from 9 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. at the Martin Luther King. Jr. Memorial on the National Mall, followed by the "Let Freedom Ring" ceremony at the Lincoln Memorial from 1 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. President Obama is scheduled to speak at the steps ol the Lincoln Memorial. Ironically. Obama accepted his party's nomination on 45th anniversary of the march on Aug. 28. 2008 in Denver. In his acceptance speech, he made reference to Dr. King but did not call him by name, preferring to refer to him as "a young preacher from Georgia." Obama's second inauguration in January of this year fell on the day of national observance of Dr. King's birth day. but Obama referred to "a King." but again did not mention MLK by name. On Aug. 28, he gets a third time to. be more specific. Throughout most of his presidency, Obama has been reluctant to address the issue of race. But that apparently changed with the shooting death of unarmed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin and the subsequent acquittal of George Zimmerman on second-degree murder charges. The Aug. 28 platform will provide him another opportunity to ad dress race. With one member of the King family - Martin III - help ing lead the Saturday march and another - Bernice - the driving force behind the March 28 event at the Lincoln Memorial, some supporters are worried that holding two (Continued On Page 2)
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