The Jim Crow Roots of Voter Suppression

Ian C Stephens may well be the anti-Benny Shaps: a measured speaker, who produces high-quality videos with plenty of citations, with a progressive bent.

Here’s his video explaining the Jim Crow Roots of Voter Suppression, which covers the history of voter suppression from 1867 to around 1950.

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Isn’t it sad that a documentary like this is even necessary?

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i’ve seen way too many twitter threads expressing the idea that, unless the law expressly prohibits african-americans from voting, it can’t truly be jim crow, which i understand it’s twitter, but still there is some feeling that the jim crow laws surrounding voting were somehow aimed directly at poc explicitly. that isn’t how it worked. the laws were expressed “neutrally” but then were applied in deeply racist ways. and the phrase “grandfather clause” started then because many of the provisions of voting laws were waived if the current voter was the lineal descendant of someone who was a voter before variously 1870, 1867, 1861, or 1860.

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Sometimes even the lawmakers explicitly saying that they deliberately excluded types of IDs Black folks already have while recognizing types of IDs white people have isn’t enough for those dingdongs either.

No matter how many courts smack down laws for being blatantly discriminatory, there will always be the “good” defenders of white supremacy who support these laws without reflection or pause.

EDIT: this article goes into detail about how openly NC’s Republicans did it

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