Civil rights pioneer says Mississippi voter ID law unfair

JACKSON – c was 22 in 1963 when he was imprisoned for 55 days on Mississippi's Death Row on a charge of disturbing the peace for trying to register black people to vote in Leflore County.

Fifty years later, Watkins said Wednesday that the state's voter ID law, implemented after a majority of the state's voters approved it, is imprisoning elderly black residents who will not obtain a photo identification so they can vote in the June 3 party primaries.

The June state party primary is the first election in which voters will be require to show photo IDs before they are allowed to vote.

"I meet so many people out in the community as a result of me working all across the state and in other states where they talk about how they feel about (voter ID)," Watkins said.

"And they feel it's not necessary, and some older people say they don't have it and they're not going to get it."

Watkins is one of the civil rights pioneers state senators honored Wednesday for their work toward the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act signed into law a year later.

"I was first sent to jail for attempting to get black people to vote in Leflore County," said Watkins, 72, of Jackson.

"And then I was sent to the county farm and moved from the county farm to the Mississippi State Penitentiary where they placed me in maximum security unit on death row where I spent 55 days."

Disturbing the peace is a misdemeanor punishable today by up to 90 days in jail and a $400 fine.

"Fifty years ago we couldn't even be in this house as a member of a legislative body," noted Sen. Willie Simmons, D-Cleveland.

"We understand the importance of educating our young individuals on the importance of this movement that took place back 50 years ago and the accomplishments we have made and also the challenges."

Watkins and other civil rights pioneers will appear during the Mississippi Freedom Summer 50th Anniversary on June 25-29 in Jackson.