Reply #12: Reprise: Palast & . Martin Luther King III-Jim Crow Revived in Cyberspace [View All]

Jim Crow Revived in Cyberspace
by Greg Palast & Martin Luther King III
Baltimore Sun

http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=306&row=2

Tuesday, May 13, 2003
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In Honor of Martin Luther King Day, we reprint this article from the Baltimore Sun by Greg Palast and Martin Luther King III, son of the slain civil rights leader.

Birmingham, Ala. – Astonishingly, and sadly, four decades after the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. marched in Birmingham, we must ask again, "Do African-Americans have the unimpeded right to vote in the United States?"

In 1963, Dr. King's determined and courageous band faced water hoses and police attack dogs to call attention to the thicket of Jim Crow laws – including poll taxes and so-called "literacy" tests – that stood in the way of black Americans' right to have their ballots cast and counted.

Today, there is a new and real threat to minority voters, this time from cyberspace: computerized purges of voter rolls.

The menace first appeared in Florida in the November 2000 presidential election. While the media chased butterfly ballots and hanging chads, a much more sinister and devastating attack on voting rights went almost undetected.