Jackson Free Press

"What's Going On" is a meaningful song by the great Marvin Gaye, as is "Ball of Confusion" with another message from the Temptations.

I doubt Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann or state Sen. Joey Fillingane can relate to any of this music or its messages, but let me move on.

My biggest question concerning the need to add another burden to the voting process is: Why now? Maybe the process began in anticipation of the 2012 governor's race. Voter ID legislation was not initially passed by state legislators. Why did Delbert and Joey feel the need to go house-to-house in order to make this happen?

Several other states are pushing for voter identification. Is there some kind of collaboration or collusion between the states in question? Maybe a conspiracy? Is there a fear of losing some level of political control? And what is this insatiable need to control without any regard for who you hurt?

In the 1940s and '50s, people of color represented more than 45 percent of the population of Mississippi but only 1.1 percent of this group voted. When questioned about this situation, the state's (white) leaders replied that blacks did not want to vote. Of course, these were the same black folks that mostly earned their living to feed their families and keep a roof over their heads by working for whites.

As a young woman, my mother-in-law watched as a car sped up the road towards the highway with its tires shot out. She spoke often of her memory of sparks flying in the air from the car's metal rims. This was the KKK fleeing from the home of Vernon Dahmer, a well know civil-rights activist, after they fire-bombed his house with his family inside. Mr. Dahmer fought them off to allow his family to escape the flames. He died the next day of smoke inhalation.

It was 1966. He was a courageous man who helped people of color register to vote and pay their Jim Crow poll taxes. For this, he was killed!

Many of the people in his generation are dying out, and the memory of the blood that was shed to force a people to do the right thing is fading.

Now comes another attempt to restrict votes, what I would refer to as a new-generation Jim Crow law pushed by selfish and insensitive state leaders. Our governor is wasting our tax dollars by forcing a fight for voter ID; he signed this process into law knowing the U.S. Justice Department will most likely shoot it down. Legislators are prepared to spend much-needed tax dollars to take this issue to the federal courts.

It's the same with health-care reform: We live in a state that has more than a half-million people uninsured, with no health care. Our governor wants to fight to repeal the health-care law and keep it from the people in our state who need it most.

Folks, this ain't 1860 or even 1960. Times are changing. America is truly a melting pot of various cultures and races, and so is our state. All the people need to be treated with fairness in accordance with the Constitution and its amendments. Let's end all the tricks! If we could bring ourselves to do this, we would truly, one day, become a great state.