For starters, the LA Times takes a look at North Carolina’s voter ID law:

Alberta Currie, the great-granddaughter of slaves, was born in a farmhouse surrounded by tobacco and cotton fields. Her mother, Willie Pearl, gave birth with the assistance of a midwife.

No birth certificate was issued; a birth announcement was handwritten into the Currie family Bible.

Today, 78 years later, that absence of official documentation may force Currie to sit out an election for the first time since 1956. Under a restrictive new voter ID law in North Carolina, a state-issued photo ID is required for voting as of the 2016 election.

…The North Carolina chapter of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People has said the new law “revisits the tactics of Jim Crow” and represents a new form of poll taxes once levied against black voters in the South.

“Jim Crow was very ugly about what he did,” Jeremy Collins, a lawyer with the Southern Coalition, told Currie in her home as her twin daughters, Brenda and Linda, 57, nodded in agreement.

“Today James Crow wears a suit and tie and is much more sophisticated,” Collins told the family.

Now let’s take a look at Winston-Salem State University, where Chancellor Donald Reaves has named a panel to investigate whether incumbent City Council member’s Derwin Montgomery’s campaign speech during a political science class violated UNC system rules that limit campaign activity on campus. It’s important to remember what happened during the ’09 election, when Montgomery upset longtime incumbent Jocelyn Johnson (emphasis mine):

In 2009, as now, Johnson complained that Montgomery had access to students that she did not have. Johnson questioned whether all the students who voted were really residents, and has asked the county elections board to look into allegations that students were given class credit for voting.

Yes I realize the voter ID law does not take affect until 2016. But you have to wonder how Johnson –who is African-American — feels about the law considering she feels wronged in the last election and could conceivably lose this election (if she makes it past next week’s primary) with a strong student turnout.

Just goes to show that issues surrounding the voter ID law aren’t so –shall we say—black and white.