Urban Legend: Will Blacks' Right to Vote Expire at Year's End?

DiversityInc's public homepage ^ | November 20, 2007 | Eric L. Hinton

[flowerplough]

There are certain rumors that refuse to die and make the rounds across the Internet--which Al Gore didn't create--every year. From the U.S. government issuing Social Security numbers based on race (false) to blacks being eligible for a $5,000 tax credit based on slave reparations (good luck with that), there are some rumors that resurface like clockwork.

One such rumor, according to various e-mails circulating on the Internet, is the idea that blacks' right to vote will expire when the Voting Rights Act of 1965 expires at year's end.

( ... ) the 15th Amendment, ratified in 1870, ... guaranteed the rights of all citizens over the age of 18 to vote. The 1965 act was designed to combat Jim Crow laws in the South that placed restrictions such as "poll taxes, literacy tests and grandfather clauses," which effectively prevented blacks from voting, according to Snopes.com. And in many Reconstruction-era states throughout the South, the Ku Klux Klan used intimidation and terror to keep blacks away from the voting booths.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 authorized the federal government to send federal registrars to counties where "local registrars refused to accept the registration of black voters, and observers to ensure blacks were allowed to vote and that their votes were counted," according to Snopes.

And yes, the act was originally set to expire this year, which led to a flurry of Internet e-mails rallying a charge to make sure it was renewed. But what some fail to realize is that the Voting Rights Act was already renewed last year by President Bush in a morning ceremony on the White House lawn that was attended by the families of slain civil-rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the late Rosa Parks.

[Riverman94610]

I hear the same thing from black adults occasionally at work.
I simply say,”wow,thats terrible.We need to hit the streets immediately and demand this racist crap stop NOW”
I get a funny look and then its back to card games and blatherings about the latest Tyler Perry movie.

[flintsilver7]

I was only kidding. I only mentioned The Office because it more or less put Scranton on the map. Sure, it’s actually a fairly large metropolitan area in Pennsylvania, but before Dunder-Mifflin nobody really knew about it.

I was also apparently mistaken about the meaning of “hayna,” which I had confused with a Pennsylvania Dutch saying that means pretty much anything.

[dangus]

The first anyone heard of Scranton?

Why, it’s the childhood home of Edith Bunker!

But, we’re still looking for the origin of “Heyna o nuh?”

[Centurion2000]

I had one black student tell me that after their right to vote would be taken away there would be a national attempt to reinstall slavery.
He swears to me this is true.

I guess they just don't open up to me because I'm a proponent of global warming. (Canada + Russia warmer = more living space for everyone.)

[sobieski]

Well, depending where you are from it could be pronounced ‘ennah’ as in ‘ennah o no?’