Registering to Vote Back In the Day

This is a blog I made years ago copied & pasted. Throwback to Thursday, Registering to Vote. The election ads season is here. Of course election means voting. But before one votes one has to register, so here we go. When I turned 18 I went to the Old Cobb County Courthouse to register to vote. I went to the voters registration office at the Old Courthouse. In the hallway was a drinking fountain with a WHITE ONLY sign. Near it was a WHITE MEN restroom and a WHITE LADIES restroom The “COLORED” restroom and water fountain was in the basement somewhere. In the Voter Registration Office I told the kindly elderly gentleman there I wanted to register to vote and he gave me the form to fill out, which I did. Then he told me you had to be able to pass the literacy test to qualify to vote. He handed me a sheet of paper and told me to read aloud what was on lit. It was Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. I started: “Four Scores and Seven Years Ago…” He said, “You passed.” I said I had just started. He said that I correctly pronounced the key word, I did not say “Foe” instead of Four and gave me a knowingly smile. The polite jovial old man went on to say if the pronunciation requirement was strictly enforced, “no telling who “THEY” would vote for.” I knew that was just wrong. But I did not dare say so because I have a slight well-hidden-most-the-time speech impediment and he might have had me read the rest of The Gettysburg Address. I bet the old fart was spinning in his grave January 20, 2009.