As it turns out ... Bentley's driver's license closures were racial, after all (al.com) [View all]

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By Kyle Whitmire | [e-mail]
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on January 05, 2017 at 11:16 AM, updated January 05, 2017 at 2:23 PM

All you had to do was look at a map to see it.

When the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency announced the closure of 31 driver's license offices in 2015, I printed out a blank map of the state's 67 counties and began coloring in the ones that no longer had a place to get the most common form of photo ID.

Rural Alabama had been hit hard by the closures, but especially the Black Belt -- the region of Alabama that takes its name first from the color of its rich soil but also from the concentration of African-Americans who live there. A few economic development projects aside, the Black Belt has always suffered the worst from Alabama's sins, leaving its citizens with the least means the farthest distance from basic necessities, be it a job, simple trip to a grocery store, utilities like broadband internet.

And now a place to get a driver's license.

To make matters worse, the closures came on the heels of Alabama requiring photo ID at the polls -- a change the state made nearly the second the United States Supreme Court took it out from underneath the watchful stare of the United States Justice Department and the Voting Rights Act.
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more: http://www.al.com/opinion/index.ssf/2017/01/as_it_turns_out_bentleys_drive.html