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Undeterred By Setbacks, NAACP Continues Push For Voting Law Changes

WFDD Photo By Paul Garber
North Carolina NAACP President Rev. William Barber talks to reporters outside the N.C. Supreme Court in Raleigh last year following testimony in opposition to the state's congressional districts. The Court upheld the districts in a split vote.

A federal trial over photo ID requirements wrapped up in Winston-Salem this week. It's the latest court battle over voting rights in which the NAACP has played a major role.

Recently, the civil-rights group has had some setbacks in that fight. The NAACP objected to the General Assembly's congressional district boundaries. In December, the state's highest court approved them. And last month their request to block the photo ID requirement during the March primary was denied.

North Carolina NAACP president Rev. William Barber says those defeats haven't discouraged him.

“We are always hopeful that ultimately the Constitution will overtake and overrule these attacks on our voting rights," he says. "Will it take time? Sure, it's always taken time in this country of America. But we are long-term fighters.”

Barber says the group will continue its series of "Moral Monday" protests with he called a "Mass Moral March" in Raleigh on Feb. 13. 

The NAACP and others argue that the photo ID requirement unfairly burdens minority voters. Attorneys for the state deny that claim. They say the law ensures the integrity of the North Carolina's elections.

The trial is over, but both sides have until Feb. 11 to provide evidence to the court.

Paul Garber is a Winston-Salem native and an award-winning reporter who began his journalism career with an internship at The High Point Enterprise in 1993. He has previously worked at The Augusta (Ga.) Chronicle, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, The News and Record of Greensboro and the Winston-Salem Journal, where he was the newspaper's first full-time multimedia reporter. He won the statewide Media and the Law award in 2000 and has also been recognized for his business, investigative and multimedia reporting. Paul earned a BA from Wake Forest University and has a Master's of Liberal Arts degree from Johns Hopkins University and a Master's of Journalism and Mass Communication from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He lives in Lewisville.

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