ALABAMA: How to Deny a Vote

In the opinion of Alabama's Racist State Senator Sam Engelhardt Jr., if you can't lick 'em, the best thing to do is scatter 'em. Panicky because Negro vote strength was rising in his county seat of Tuskegee (pop. 6,700), Engelhardt last May authored a gerrymander that jig-sawed more than 400 Negro residents—and the respected Negro Tuskegee Institute—outside the city's limits. Forthwith, the city of Tuskegee was hard hit by a Negro boycott (TIME, July 8) that slashed white merchants' business 50%, shut down stores that depended primarily on Negro trade. Incensed at...