Your State Sucks: Alabama Sucks Because It Dishonors Its Own African American Heritage

So you might have heard that the fine state of Alabama (motto: "Our capitol has been Confederate flag-free for nearly four months") is saving money by getting rid of the driver's license service in a bunch of counties in the state. Yeah, of the 31, 8 are counties with large majority black registered voters in a state where you are required to have a government-issued photo i.d. to vote. Sure, you can renew your license online, but now license bureaus will be nearly 50 miles away for many people who need them, especially, you know, African Americans in poverty.

One of those offices is in Macon County, Alabama. Check it out on a map:

You see what town that is there? It's Tuskegee, Alabama, the place where Tuskegee University is. That would be the same Tuskegee University that was the Tuskegee Institute, led by Booker T. Washington from 1881 to 1915, a place where blacks in the South could get higher education post-Reconstruction. It's where George Washington Carver did some of his most important research. It's where the Tuskegee Airmen were trained to go fight in World War II. It's also the place where poor black sharecroppers were deliberately infected with syphilis to study its effects. And to this day, it remains one of the best universities in the south. In other words, important chapters in African American history are bound up with Tuskegee.

And that's one of the places where Alabama's state government decided to take steps that would end up disenfranchising African American voters. Classy.