Speech #910172730

They counted all of these college studentsthousands of themin order to determine whether 50 percent of the citizens in that county who were of voting age had voted in the 1964 presidential election. By reason of counting the college students. they fell a little short of that. and they have since been denied. and would be denied under the pending proposal. for 5 years more. the right to exercise the constitutional powers given to them by the Constitution of the United States in four sections. and on the assumed basis. under the triggering device. that they discriminated against blacks in registration and voting. This county. in the last Legislature of North Carolina. was represented by a black man who introduced a resolution to abolish the literacy test. When this black man from Guilford County introduced the proposal to abolish the literacy test in the legislature. the Legislature of North Carolina. which consisted of 50 senators. all of the other 49 being white. and 119 other representatives. all of whom were white. adopted the resolution. and it is to be voted on at the next general election this fall. Although the Senator from North Carolina thinks that people ought to be able to read and write in order to vote. in order to have an enlightened electorate. he is tempted to vote for the repeal to keep North Carolina from being included among the culprits simply because It has a literacy test. But the most striking illustration of this was in Wake County. N.C.. the seat of the North Carolina State government. and also the seat of many institutions of higher learning. and also the seat of one of the great hospitals for the mentally ill. and also the site of Central State Prison. where persons convicted of felonies are confined.