In 2004, voters rejected an amendment to purge those remnants of Jim Crow from the constitution by fewer than 2,000 votes.
'We've Got To Move Forward'
"I think that was a black eye for the state," says Bryan Taylor, a Republican who chairs the Alabama Senate's constitution and elections committee. "Nationally, that was perceived as, 'There goes Alabama, voting down language to reverse its black mark in history.' "
Taylor says that perception hampers the state's drive to attract business, so lawmakers are again putting forth a constitutional amendment, Amendment 4, to delete the now obsolete segregation-era language.
"We've got to move forward, to put that behind us," Taylor says. "This is a way to symbolically show the rest of the nation, and the rest of the world, that Alabama's past is not our future."
