Lane. furnished for the records of the committee hearings on this legislation. affidavits attesting to the lack of discrimination in voter registration there. In Wilson County. N.C.. in 1964. only 6 Negroes failed the literacy test while 919 passed. Two white persons also failed the test. Three more white persons declined to take the test after stating that they could not read. In a much smaller county. Greene. five Negroes failed the literacy test in 1964. and 82 of them passed. Seven white persons failed. while 140 passed. These. of course. are just a few examples of the extent to which qualified persons are being registered in our congressional district. If the pending bill were aimed like a rifle at discriminatory applications of the literacy test. if its provisions were designed solely to prevent a State or locality from using some test or device to deny voting rights on account of race or color. no objection could be taken on constitutional grounds. The obvious vice of this legislation is that it is not so aimed and it is not so limited. As the distinguished gentleman from North Carolina . pointed out yesterday. this bill is triggered by a phony formula. a numbers gamea slick little testing device that relies not upon proof of discrimination but rather on certain statistics.
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literacy test