Comment on part one

By no means would I de-emphasize the physical violence that these perpetrators used against civil rights workers, blacks or other victims, and I'm not hardened to it. But sometimes what I found more shocking was the extent of efforts to keep blacks from registering to vote or voting at all, or forming or joining advocacy groups. Maybe I think of violence as the means of dumb brutes but the right to vote as a sanctity that the intelligent would revere and protect. And it's hard to understand that the justice system could essentially imprison you if you showed up to register (as was the case in Jim Middleton's jurisdiction). Withholding these rights required so much complicity through so many branches and levels of government. It required premeditation and planning. How does one consider himself an American or patriot and play the mental hopscotch required to justify these actions?