GOP now buying a Black voice.

A black South Carolina woman may have helped Mitt Romney shed the "out of touch with the poor" label for one day. Ruth Williams, 55, said she was driving down a South Carolina road when she saw Romney's campaign bus and felt something.

"I was on the highway praying and said, 'God, just show me how to get my lights on,' and I pulled up to a stop sign and his bus was there," Williams told ABC News. "And then God said, 'Follow the bus,' and I followed the bus to the airport."

She followed it to Columbia, S.C., where the former Massachusetts governor was making an appearance. Romney, who was talking to supporters, saw the woman, who is currently unemployed, and handed her a $50 bill. It is also reported that his treasurer chipped in $150 to pay her light bill.

Since then Williams, who has been unemployed since last October, has been volunteering at Romney's campaign office in Columbia. "I'm just helping, cleaning and doing the little things," Williams told ABC News.
While this woman may have gotten some temporary relief with the cash handouts for herself and the light bill, it seems a bit demeaning to us because handouts are the very thing these Republican candidates bemoan. Instead of giving this woman charity, he could have told her about places in South Carolina where she could go to find information about jobs. He could have explained to her what his plans are to bring jobs to people, not just in South Carolina but across the country.


read morehttp://www.theroot.com/romney-gives-black-woman-50-dollars

The New Jim Crow rise in the South.

- U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, appearing at a Martin Luther King holiday rally in South Carolina, warned on Monday that voting rights laws are still at risk and said aggressive enforcement of those laws is "a moral imperative."

Weeks after his Justice Department blocked a South Carolina voter identification law it said would make it harder for tens of thousands of voters, mostly minorities, to cast a ballot, Holder said the principle of electoral equality was still endangered.

"The reality is that - in jurisdictions across the country - both overt and subtle forms of discrimination remain all too common," Holder, who is black, told hundreds of people attending an annual rally to honor King, the slain civil rights leader, on the steps of the South Carolina state capitol.

"Protecting the right to vote, ensuring meaningful access, and combating discrimination must be viewed, not only as a legal issue - but as a moral imperative," Holder said. "Ensuring that every eligible citizen has the right to vote must become our common cause."

The South Carolina law required voters to show a state-issued photo identification card to cast a ballot in an election. Republican supporters said it would prevent voter fraud, but Democratic critics argued it would make it harder for those without driver's licenses, many of them poor and black, to cast a ballot.

The Justice Department blocked the law after ruling it could hinder the right to vote of tens of thousands of people. It noted that just more than a third of the state's minorities who are registered voters did not have a driver's license. The state plans to fight the ruling in court.

South Carolina is one of six Republican-led states that tightened their laws last year to require a photo ID. Two other Republican-led states have similar laws in place, while 23 other states require voters to produce some form of identification.

Under the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act, South Carolina is one of 16 largely Southern states that must seek approval from the Justice Department or the federal courts for changes made to state voting laws and boundaries for voting districts.

"This keystone of our voting rights laws is now being challenged as unconstitutional by several jurisdictions," Holder said, adding there was still work to be done to ensure voter equality.

Holder was invited to the annual rally to honor King by the state chapter of the civil rights group the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

South Carolina holds its Republican presidential primary on Saturday. The Republican candidates have criticized the Justice Department's ruling as an example of Washington's bureaucratic intrusion on state rights under President Barack Obama.

read more;http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/16/us-usa-voterid-idUSTRE80F1CB20120116