The most unfortunate effect of the hyperbole comparing “Jim Crow” to voter ID is that it diminishes the evil of Jim Crow.  Reasonable people simply do not believe that requiring a photo ID to vote compares with almost total disenfranchisement of the black minority and de jure segregation across the South.  Reasonable people do not find equivalency in laws prohibiting blacks from using the same water fountain as whites with a law which verifies identity at the polls.   But today’s Washington Post repeats the nonsense without question, with an outlandish side order of Ben Chavis:

 “What kind of governor, what kind of lieutenant governor, what kind of senator, what kind of delegate would lynch democracy?”said Benjamin Chavis, former director of the NAACP.

There was a time when the civil rights movement appealed to the moral core of reasonable Americans.  Those who have inherited the legacy now appeal to irrational fears and zealots.