- Peter Skipper, CDM Communications Director
Newt Gingrich’s recent comments about requiring young people to pass a poll test on American history in order to vote perfectly illustrate why people like Gingrich could themselves use a healthy dose of American history as it actually happened. It seems that Newt is forgetting about one of the hallmark pieces of legislation of the 20th century that passed into law during one of the greatest times of social upheaval this nation has ever witnessed. I’m talking, of course, about the Voting Rights Act of 1965, during the Civil Rights movement, which, among other things, outlawed literacy tests that racist Southern regimes had erected to prevent blacks from voting. Under this law, Newt’s history poll test would be flat-out illegal.
