A long list of voting and election-related bills are still being considered by state lawmakers, and some — especially by those on the left side of the political aisle — are being called discriminatory. Republican state Rep. John Fillmore has even called for returning to “1958-style voting.”
That has led longtime Arizonans to think back many decades to the time before and during the civil rights movement of the 1960s, when Black residents and other people of color were subjected to harassment while in line to vote — including being asked or told to pass a literacy test.
Arizona Republic reporter Ray Stern wrote about that history and what it has in common with today’s legislative efforts.
The Show spoke with both him and Cloves Campbell Jr. — former state lawmaker and publisher of the Arizona Informant newspaper — to put this into perspective.
