How to Deny a Vote

In the opinion of Alabama's Racist State Senator Sam Engelhardt Jr., if you can't lick 'em, the best thing to do is scatter 'em. Panicky because Negro vote strength was rising in his county seat of Tuskegee (pop. 6,700), Engelhardt last May authored a gerrymander that jig-sawed more than 400 Negro residents--and the respected Negro Tuskegee Institute--outside the city's limits. Forthwith, the city of Tuskegee was hard hit by a Negro boycott (TIME, July 8) that slashed white merchants' business 50%, shut down stores that depended primarily on Negro trade. Incensed at the boycott, alarmed because Tuskegee-encompassing Macon County is 84% Negro, Senator Engelhardt, officer in the lily-white Alabama Association of Citizens' Councils, hatched a king-size gerrymander. Last week, by a 21,012-vote margin, Alabama voters approved his constitutional amendment to abolish Macon County.

Opposition to the Engelhardt proposal was strong, not because many Alabamans were suddenly reconciled to Negro voting, but because they agreed with the Birmingham News that "it leaves unanswered a number of questions as to division of tax moneys and the responsibilities for the areas of Macon which may be divided." Nonetheless, the Engelhardt plan can now run its course. Whenever they choose, commissioners of Macon County can meet commissioners of abutting Tallapoosa, Elmore, Lee, Bullock and Montgomery Counties, apportion among the other five Macon County's 618 square miles. Then, when the legislature approves, Macon County will disappear.

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