On the subject of Historically Black Colleges and Universities, I’m reminded of a story I recently shared over at Half Sigma. A couple, actually.

A couple hours from Colosse in Firehole County is Delosa A&T State University, the state’s black agricultural and technical university. Firehole County is one of the more conservative in Delosa, but periodically Yellow Dog Democrats in effort with A&T students can get a Democrat election. The state’s District Attorney and County Registrar released a joint statement declaring that because they were not permanent residents, most A&T students would not be allowed to vote in county elections. Only those that had officially changed their address would be able to do so. As you can imagine, black leaders, Democrats, and the media cried bloody murder. It invoked imagery of when white election officials were keen to prevent blacks from voting at all.

What’s a bit ironic, however, is that one year earlier there was an open race for the mayoralty of Colosse. The leading candidate was a former Colosse County Democratic Party Chairman. When he held that position, he lobbied election officials to prevent soldiers stationed at the local army base from being able to vote unless they had declared residency. As you might expect, his Republican run-off opponent and his supporters cried bloody murder. At a time when our soldiers were fighting for democracy abroad, they were being denied democracy at home.

At the end of the day, the A&T students and soldiers were both allowed to vote regardless of where they officially had residency. The former CCDP chairman became Colosse’s mayor and Firehole County remains solidly Republican.