AL: Vote Looms on Amending Constitution to Abolish Legal Segregation

[Frodo]

Yes, you heard it right -de jure segregation is still mandated in the Alabama constitution:

Ala. constitution: Vote looms on amending history

By PHILLIP RAWLS
Associated Press

Segregation ended decades ago in Alabama, swept away by the civil rights marchers who faced down police dogs and fire hoses in the early `60s. But segregation is still mandated by the state's constitution, and voters on Nov. 6 will get only their second chance in years to eliminate an anachronism that still exists on paper.

Election Day in this Deep South state could be the day Alabama amends history.

Amendment 4 - the proposal to delete the constitution's archaic language affirming segregation - is tucked amid routine issues of sewers, bonds and city boundaries on a crowded Election Day ballot. It's a striking call to see if Alabama will repeat what it did in 2004, when the state narrowly voted to keep the outdated and racially controversial language, bringing national ridicule upon the state.

The second time won't be any easier than the first because Alabama's two largest black political groups are urging a "no" vote. They say the proposed changes would wipe out some racially charged language, but would retain segregation-era language saying there is no constitutional right to a public education in Alabama. And they've been joined by the state's main teachers' group in refusing to go along.

[Franzl]

Serious question: Will it pass? I shouldn't have to ask , but I do.

[Tender Branson]

The second time won't be any easier than the first because Alabama's two largest black political groups are urging a "no" vote. They say the proposed changes would wipe out some racially charged language, but would retain segregation-era language saying there is no constitutional right to a public education in Alabama. And they've been joined by the state's main teachers' group in refusing to go along.

So, no matter what the result will be, it will remain a bad law ...

[morgieb]

Oh lol.

[Associate Justice PiT]

The second time won't be any easier than the first because Alabama's two largest black political groups are urging a "no" vote. They say the proposed changes would wipe out some racially charged language, but would retain segregation-era language saying there is no constitutional right to a public education in Alabama. And they've been joined by the state's main teachers' group in refusing to go along.

So, no matter what the result will be, it will remain a bad law ...

     I would think it would make sense for them to support it as a step in the right direction, though. It's retaining old objectionable language, but it doesn't seem to be creating any new objectionable language, after all. I guess they're afraid that people will become complacent if this passes?

[politicallefty]

Consider me as not optimistic about this. I think they'll repeat their 2004 vote in keeping segregationist language in place, unless Obama can miraculously get above 40% in the state. But really, I can't begin to wrap my mind around the thinking of Deep Southern Whites.

[Ebowed]

The second time won't be any easier than the first because Alabama's two largest black political groups are urging a "no" vote. They say the proposed changes would wipe out some racially charged language, but would retain segregation-era language saying there is no constitutional right to a public education in Alabama. And they've been joined by the state's main teachers' group in refusing to go along.

So, no matter what the result will be, it will remain a bad law ...

     I would think it would make sense for them to support it as a step in the right direction, though. It's retaining old objectionable language, but it doesn't seem to be creating any new objectionable language, after all. I guess they're afraid that people will become complacent if this passes?

I suspect the link between this attitude towards public education and racial relations in Alabama is more closely entwined than would be initially obvious, given that the staunch opposition to Brown vs. Board ushered in an era of private academies keeping segregation of school children in place throughout much of the state.  The implication of such efforts, of course, being that whites there would be happy to continue to grant rights to blacks on the basis of simultaneous equality and separation, and we can see why it is imperative that the effort to remove offensive language from the state constitution must include these disparaging references to public education.

[Badger]

Serious question: Will it pass? I shouldn't have to ask , but I do.

The real question is whether a majority of whites will support it. In 2000 there was a similar initiative in AL to remove the (unenforced) state constitutional ban on inter-racial marriage. It was universally supported by all major political and social groups (though not loudly as its passage was a given), and had no organized opposition. It only passed around 60-40. I read a very persuasive graduate school disertation on the vote I found on-line, which made a compelling case base on precinct data and other analysis that blacks overwhelmingly supported repeal, but the white vote was at best evenly split.

[Spanish Moss]

This time around, can we please just force the south to secede?