“We can’t have evil armed men at polling places in this country. That’s what makes us different than other places around the world.”

“How many bubbles are in a bar of soap?” This was one of the “qualifying” questions posed to blacks attempting to register to vote up until the Voting Rights Act of 1965 outlawed such discriminatory practices…

…But sin—including racial sin—didn’t go to sleep. And the Justice Department now, according to an attorney who recently resigned from the agency, is refusing to enforce equally parts of the Voting Rights Act…

The current controversy over voting-rights enforcement stems from 2008. A race-based incident marred the historic Election Day in which Americans chose Barack Obama to be the first African-American president. Two members of the New Black Panther Party stood outside a Philadelphia polling station, dressed in fatigues and black berets. One, King Samir Shabazz, had a nightstick. One reportedly proclaimed, “You’re about to be ruled by the black man, cracker.” The incident was caught on videotape.

Bartle Bull, a civil-rights lawyer in the 1960s and one-time manager of Robert Kennedy’s presidential campaign, witnessed the New Black Panther incident and submitted an affidavit for the case against the men. He was incensed when Justice dropped the case, and told The Wall Street Journal: “This kind of double standard is not what Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy fought for.”

Read More: http://www.worldmag.com/articles/16941