Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy (1 Viewer)

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    WASHINGTON — JoAnne Bland was 11 when she crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge on March 7, 1965 − known as Bloody Sunday − with hundreds of others to protest Black Americans being denied voting rights.

    Bland recalled that her father and grandmother both failed tests they had to take to register to vote. She told USA TODAY taking the journey across the bridge in Selma, Alabama, made her who she is today.

    “Getting the right to vote to me meant I would be able to go into sit at a counter that I wanted to like the white kids do" Bland, 70, said. "I’ve dedicated my life to making sure that we keep the right to vote even though it's attacked."

    Five months after Bloody Sunday, former President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which helped outlaw literacy tests and other discriminatory voting practices adopted after the Civil War.

    Today, some Black Americans say Republican candidate Vivek Ramaswamy's proposal to implement a civics test for voters ages 18 to 24 gives them flashbacks to the hurdles.

    Ramaswamy has argued the test would be the same one immigrants have to take in order to become citizens of the United States. The alternative to the test would be six months of military or first-responder service. If people did not pass the test or qualify for any exemptions, they could vote beginning at 25.

    “It is a problem that young people don't vote enough in this country," Ramaswamy told Iowans at a campaign event in May. "But if you make it something that you actually have to earn, you value it even more. It's human nature and psychology."

    When the plan was first floated in the summer, however, it immediately drew ire from voters who are part of the group Black Girls Vote, according to Natasha Murphy, the organization's chief of staff.

    “Having known what it feels like to be singled out as a group and somehow unfit to really participate as a voter, I think there was that discomfort with having that same label placed on someone due to their age solely,” she told USA TODAY.

    Though the 15th amendment guaranteed the right for Black Americans to vote, some southern states passed literacy test requirements and offered exemptions for white people after the Civil War, Olga Koulisis, assistant professor of history at Murray State University, explained.

    The tests would include questions surrounding historical events or the Constitution, but these were often “very difficult, even for someone who pays attention to these kinds of issues,” said Brent Taylor, social science coordinator at West Kentucky Community and Technical College.

    Some of the questions were also designed for test takers to fail. In a sample 1965 Alabama literacy test, for instance, one question asked at what time of day a president’s term ends. The tests also included questions like “How many jelly beans are in this jar?”

    Flonzie Brown-Wright, 81, who attempted to register to vote in 1964, previously told USA TODAY the test she took had questions such as “How many feathers are in a chicken?” She also had to interpret a section of the Mississippi Constitution.

    “They did not teach us anything about the Mississippi Constitution in my segregated school,” Brown-Wright said. “So (there) was no way I knew about that.”

    Alonzo Davis, an 81-year-old artist living based Maryland, still recalls when his father came home after attempting to register to vote and saying he felt “humiliated” by taking the test. Davis, 10 at the time, said he was too young to understand what was happening...............

     
    The presidential campaign of Vivek Ramaswamy is halting its TV advertising in the crucial final stretch leading up to the first nominating contests in January, arguing its resources are better used elsewhere as the first-time candidate lags behind several rivals in polls of the Republican race.


    The unusual move stirred some speculation that Ramaswamy might drop out and endorse former president Donald Trump, the overwhelming polling leader in the GOP race, whom Ramaswamy — more than any of his rivals — has defended and emulated. But his campaign said it was not pulling back on spending and sought to project optimism about its future.


    Ramaswamy and his team said they simply were ditching an ineffective medium and retooling for the stretch run before the mid-January Iowa caucuses, even as they did not explicitly rule out the possibility of bowing out. “Big surprise coming on Jan 15,” Ramaswamy wrote on X, formerly Twitter, noting, “We’re doing it differently.”

    Trump himself weighed in Tuesday on his social media site, Truth Social. “He will, I am sure, Endorse me,” he said of Ramaswamy. “But Vivek is a good man, and is not done yet!”……….

     
    Optimus Prime said:
    The presidential campaign of Vivek Ramaswamy is halting its TV advertising in the crucial final stretch leading up to the first nominating contests in January, arguing its resources are better used elsewhere as the first-time candidate lags behind several rivals in polls of the Republican race.


    The unusual move stirred some speculation that Ramaswamy might drop out and endorse former president Donald Trump, the overwhelming polling leader in the GOP race, whom Ramaswamy — more than any of his rivals — has defended and emulated. But his campaign said it was not pulling back on spending and sought to project optimism about its future.


    Ramaswamy and his team said they simply were ditching an ineffective medium and retooling for the stretch run before the mid-January Iowa caucuses, even as they did not explicitly rule out the possibility of bowing out. “Big surprise coming on Jan 15,” Ramaswamy wrote on X, formerly Twitter, noting, “We’re doing it differently.”

    Trump himself weighed in Tuesday on his social media site, Truth Social. “He will, I am sure, Endorse me,” he said of Ramaswamy. “But Vivek is a good man, and is not done yet!”……….

    Click to expand...
    ”…is not done yet!” Perhaps when the SEC is done with him then he‘ll be done.
     

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