Spiritual Herald

There's a 'paper' here in Murfreesboro called the spiritual Herald. It's a small religious paper and is sold out of machines for the astounding price of $1.00 per issue. It's black and white and I think probably eight pages. I don't know how often it comes out, most likely monthly.

I glanced at the front cover on my way out of Shoney's this morning, and one of the headlines caught my eye. It was something along the lines of "You Must Read This." Well I read it, and it started by saying "We are fast approaching the 21st century."

Right there I knew there might be something amiss to the story, as, If I am correct in my observations, we have been in the 21st century for at least a year now.

It went on to reveal the startling information that the right to vote for African Americans will expire in 2007, due to the expiration of the Voting Rights Act of 1965".
According to the paper African Americans only gained the right to vote in 1965, and only keep it through the renewal of this act; the most recent renewal having been for 25 years and signed by Ronald Reagan in 1982.

Standing there I was pretty sure that there was a, you know, Constitutional amendment that covers this area. I thought that I remembered that from my social studies classes, but I have been known to be wrong.

So I came home and looked it up, and damned if there isn't the 15th amendment that guarantees the right to vote for all citizens (assuming you were male and 21 of course, women and 18-21 year-olds would have to wait until the 19th and 26th amendments respectively).

You see, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 only became necessary to stop Jim Crow laws enacted by the southern states.

The whole story can be found here.

A simple knowledge of civics or a search of the internet would have revealed this fact to the editor's of the paper.

I think that they were duped by an erroneous e-mail or letter since the story lead with the "...approaching the 21st century..." bit, and just pretty much printed the info they had verbatim.

Just goes to show you you should always check your sources.