Voter Restrictions: The New Jim Crow
“Selma: The Bridge to the Ballot” is a new documentary produced by the Southern Poverty Law Center with financial support from Terry Matthews, one of the co-owners of Community Word. Terry is passionate about voter registration, and she has a long list of volunteer work to support that cause.
The documentary recounts a specific historic period of intimidation and violence against African Americans, starting with the Ku Klux Klan bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala., in September 1963 to the walk from Selma to Montgomery in 1965. The world watched and gasped at news coverage of Bloody Sunday when nonviolent protesters walking over the Edmund Pettus Bridge advocating for fair voter registration were met by mounted police with clubs, tear gas and guns. That in a nation founded on principles of equality and justice.
Sections of this 40-minute documentary, especially the whack of a billy club hitting now-Congressman John Lewis’ head, brought tears to the eyes of many in the audience at the Lincoln Branch Library in Peoria where the film was shown in early September.
It is impossible for anyone to watch this film and blithely skip voting or rationalize that one individual vote doesn’t matter. Every single vote matters enough that some people, not so long ago, died for our right to vote
Schools can secure free copies of the film. For information, go to the Southern Poverty Law Center documentary website: http://www.tolerance.org/selma-bridge-to-ballot.
The film focuses on events of half a century ago, but the cycle of retaliation, injustice and disenfranchisement continues.
Last year, white election officials in Sparta, Ga., decided to question 180 mostly African-American voters by sending sheriff’s deputies to serve them with “courtesy” summonses ordering them to appear in person to prove their residency or lose their voting rights.
In North Dakota, election officials decided a good way to restrict voting by Native Americans would be to mandate that a street address must be used rather than a post office box, knowing full well that people living on Indian reservations use P.O. box numbers for their addresses.
Other states have reduced early voting, eliminated polling locations in certain neighborhoods and cut the hours for voting. Sunday voting is popular among African American church members so eliminating Sunday voting is one way to suppress black voters who tend to embrace Democratic candidates.
The New York Times has written that some of these voting restrictions have targeted African-Americans with “almost surgical precision.” The supposed justification is voter fraud which time and again has been documented as virtually nonexistent in this country.
If any of this rankles you, fight back. Vote early this year. Circle Nov. 8 on your calendar, and look for every opportunity to encourage and help people get to the polls. (Clare Howard)
Vote YES for Peoria County Referendum
To Benefit Developmentally Disabled
Peoria County lags far behind most other counties in Illinois providing financial support for community-based services to our over 23,000 children aged birth to 3 and adults over 21 with developmental disabilities.
If a child or young adult is delayed in obtaining critical community services to ensure they reach their maximum potential and hopefully live more independently, we all lose.
Those with developmental disabilities will be less prepared to earn an income, live in the community and be socially and emotionally connected with others. Community-based services enable parents to keep their jobs, care for other children and maintain a strong family unit for their developmentally disabled child.
It costs about $53,000 a year to provide a developmentally disabled person with community-based services versus $258,000 in a state institution. Leaving aside the caring and humane differences, it just makes financial sense to do the best job we can to ensure that only those who must actually do live in a residential setting.
The Care and Treatment Board, appointed by the Peoria County Board chairperson, is established to fund our local agencies like Community Workshop and Training Center, EP!C, Camp Big Sky and Easter Seals that provide community-based services to those with developmental disabilities. These funds are distributed through a competitive grant process to eligible not-for-profit service providers.
Peoria County’s current property tax levy for the Care and Treatment Board, at just less than 1 cent per $100 in assessed valuation, is one of the lowest in Illinois. The maximum level is 10 cents. In 1995, Peoria County supported a tax levy of just over 5 cents, five times today’s rate, but the levy has been reduced over subsequent years.
The developmentally disabled are some of our most vulnerable residents. We can and should do more. The advisory referendum on the ballot Nov. 8 supports increasing the tax levy up to 1 cent for the Care and Treatment Board.
A second part of the advisory referendum asks to increase the levy by 0.5 cents to provide assistance to military veterans, their families and families of deceased veterans.
This would bring the total tax increase up to 1.5 cents for services for the developmentally disabled and veterans, an additional $6.33 on a homeowner’s property tax bill for a home valued at $150,000. This will provide funding that is urgently needed. Vote YES. (Joyce Harant, Care and Treatment Board member)