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Miss. voter ID law expected to be used by 2014

Mississippi voters could have to start showing photo identification at the polls by the June 2014 federal primaries, Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann said last week after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that certain state and local governments no longer need federal approval to change their own election laws or procedures.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 has required Mississippi and other areas with a history of racial discrimination, mainly in the South, to get clearance for changes as large as implementing a voter ID law to as small as relocating a precinct.

In a 5-4 ruling, justices blocked enforcement of a provision in the 1965 Voting Rights Act that requires Mississippi and several other state and local governments to get federal approval before making any changes to voting laws or procedures. Preclearance has been required in areas with a history of racial discrimination, mainly in the South. […]

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Civil rights activist, Euvester Simpson, among those to get Hamer Award

Civil rights activist, Euvester Simpson, who was just a teenager when she was jailed with Fannie Lou Hamer in Winona, Miss. in 1963, is one of five people who will be honored by The Fannie Lou Hamer Institute on April 19 at Jackson State University.

The four other humanitarian award recipients are:

Rev. John Earl Cameron of Jackson, a civil rights activist who ran for Congress in 1963; Alvin O. Chambliss, an attorney who represented Jake Ayer Sr. in the landmark lawsuit over desegregation in Mississippi’s higher education system; Jackson attorney Robert McDuff, whose work has include voting rights issues, civil rights and criminal law; and Nsombi Lambright, director of Resource Development and Communications for One Voice and former director of the Mississippi ACLU. […]

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Tougaloo College to hold memorial service for Mississippi Civil Rights veteran Lawrence Guyot

The Mississippi Link Newswire

A memorial service will be held for Mississippi civil rights veteran Lawrence Guyot Monday, Dec. 10, in the historic Woodworth Chapel on the campus of Tougaloo College. Guyot was a Tougaloo graduate, who died Nov. 23, 2012 in Mount Ranier, Md.

Guyot was a leader in the Mississippi movement and worked alongside luminaries like Medgar Evers and Fannie Lou Hamer. He was beaten and jailed for his beliefs and activism but still worked tirelessly and at great personal risk for voter registration of those denied these rights…. […]