Recalling Struggle for Civil Rights, Democrats Battle for Black Votes

Blog #3 - 3rd Quarter
Representative John Lewis hoped that one day he would be able to vote for the first black president of the US, but he is now faced with a difficult decision of choosing between Senator Barack Obama, and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, whom he’d once said was “the future of the Democratic Party.”
The 2008 Democratic presidential contest has shown Clinton, Obama, and former North Carolina senator John Edwards competing for black supporters, and it seems it is the most competitive scramble since the Voting Rights Act passed in 1965.
In South Carolina 50% of primary voters are black while in Alabama 60% of primary voters are black.
While in Selma, Alabama the candidates will have the opportunity to connect the civil rights movement to today’s politics, while keeping the spotlight on themselves.
Clinton realizes that she is at a deficit as Mr. Obama is a black candidate looking for support from black voters.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 followed the 14th Amendment which recognized the black population as citizens of the United States. When an unprovoked attack on peaceful voting rights activists occurred on March 7, 1965, President Johnson and Congress were persuaded to overcome the Southern legislators’ resistance to effective voting rights legislation. Hearings soon began on a bill that would come to be called the Voting Rights Act. Section two of the act closely follows the language of the 15th Amendment. The Act also provided enforcement for those parts of the country where discrimination was considered strongest.