The South: Squeezing the Trigger

"Early reports indicate extensive and encouraging voluntary compliance with the new act," began U.S. Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach. "Regrettably, however, such responsible compliance is neither uniform nor complete." With that, Katzenbach last week ordered federal voting examiners into five more "dead-end" counties in Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi; in all, federal registrars were now at work in 14 Deep South counties that have failed to comply with the new Voting Rights Act. In three of the five new counties, more than 100% of all voting-age whites were on the voting rolls, while as few...