jAZ
12-03-2004, 12:30 AM
http://www.concordmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20041128/REPOSITORY/411280388/1037/NEWS04
Vote affirming segregation opens old racial wounds
Bid to change constitution narrowly lost
By MANUEL ROIG-FRANZIA
The Washington Post
-------------------------------------------------------------
November 28. 2004 8:00AM
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. - On that long-ago day of Alabama's great shame, then-Gov. George Wallace stood in a schoolhouse door and declared that his state's constitution forbade black students to enroll at the University of Alabama.
He was correct.
If Wallace could be brought back to life to reprise his 1963 moment of infamy outside Foster Auditorium, he would still be correct. Alabama voters made sure of that on Nov. 2, refusing to approve a constitutional amendment that would have erased segregation-era wording requiring separate schools for "white and colored children" and eliminated references to the poll taxes once imposed to disenfranchise blacks.
The vote was so close - a margin of fewer than 1,850 votes out of 1.38 million cast - that an automatic recount will take place tomorrow. But, with few expecting the recount to change the result, the amendment's saga has dragged Alabama into a confrontation with its segregationist past that illuminates the sometimes uneasy race relations of its present.
There are competing theories about the defeat of Amendment 2, the measure that would have taken "colored children" and segregated schools out of Alabama's constitution. One says latent, persistent racism was to blame; another says voters are suspicious of all constitutional amendments; and a third says it was not about race but about taxes.
The amendment had two main parts: the removal of the separate-schools language and the removal of a passage - inserted in the 1950s in an attempt to counter the Brown v. Board of Education ruling against segregated public schools -that said Alabama's constitution does not guarantee a right to a public education.
Leading opponents, such as Alabama Christian Coalition President John Giles, said they did not object to removing the passage about separate schools for "white and colored children." But, employing an argument that was ridiculed by most of the state's newspapers and by legions of legal experts, Giles and others said guaranteeing a right to a public education would have opened a door for "rogue" federal judges to order the state to raise taxes to pay for improvements in its public school system.
(more at link)
Vote affirming segregation opens old racial wounds
Bid to change constitution narrowly lost
By MANUEL ROIG-FRANZIA
The Washington Post
-------------------------------------------------------------
November 28. 2004 8:00AM
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. - On that long-ago day of Alabama's great shame, then-Gov. George Wallace stood in a schoolhouse door and declared that his state's constitution forbade black students to enroll at the University of Alabama.
He was correct.
If Wallace could be brought back to life to reprise his 1963 moment of infamy outside Foster Auditorium, he would still be correct. Alabama voters made sure of that on Nov. 2, refusing to approve a constitutional amendment that would have erased segregation-era wording requiring separate schools for "white and colored children" and eliminated references to the poll taxes once imposed to disenfranchise blacks.
The vote was so close - a margin of fewer than 1,850 votes out of 1.38 million cast - that an automatic recount will take place tomorrow. But, with few expecting the recount to change the result, the amendment's saga has dragged Alabama into a confrontation with its segregationist past that illuminates the sometimes uneasy race relations of its present.
There are competing theories about the defeat of Amendment 2, the measure that would have taken "colored children" and segregated schools out of Alabama's constitution. One says latent, persistent racism was to blame; another says voters are suspicious of all constitutional amendments; and a third says it was not about race but about taxes.
The amendment had two main parts: the removal of the separate-schools language and the removal of a passage - inserted in the 1950s in an attempt to counter the Brown v. Board of Education ruling against segregated public schools -that said Alabama's constitution does not guarantee a right to a public education.
Leading opponents, such as Alabama Christian Coalition President John Giles, said they did not object to removing the passage about separate schools for "white and colored children." But, employing an argument that was ridiculed by most of the state's newspapers and by legions of legal experts, Giles and others said guaranteeing a right to a public education would have opened a door for "rogue" federal judges to order the state to raise taxes to pay for improvements in its public school system.
(more at link)