MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) – Alabama lawmakers have begun a process to remove racist language from the state’s 121-year-old Constitution.
The Alabama House of Representatives on Thursday voted 94-0 for the resolution by Rep. Merika Coleman that streamlines the massive state document and removes lingering Jim Crow language. The legislation now moves to the Alabama Senate. If approved, it would go before voters in November.
The proposal would strip language on segregated schools, poll taxes and language that allowed a brutal convict lease system that sold Black men, often arrested under questionable circumstances, into forced labor.
While those provisions have largely been invalidated by court rulings, the vestiges of Jim Crow remain in the state’s chief governing document, such as the fight to maintain segregated schools.
The pending proposal also reorganizes the massive, sprawling document that has nearly 1,000 constitutional amendments to try to make it more user friendly.