By George Sells
Ferguson, MO (KTVI) — Dozens of college students are pouring into the Ferguson area, but they are not there to protest. Students from a number of historically black colleges in the Atlanta area arrived in north St. Louis County Saturday, ready to work with the NAACP to register voters. Their goal is to register as many voters as possible as the region moves forward since the shooting death of Michael Brown.
They arrive just one day after the fiftieth anniversary of a far more challenging voter registration campaign, the march in Selma, Alabama commemorated Saturday by President Obama, among others. It also comes just a few days after a scathing department of justice report ripped the Ferguson police and municipal courts for disproportionate traffic stops, arrests, and fines targeting African Americans.
The students will work up to Wednesday, which is the deadline for registration to vote in the April 7, 2015, municipal elections for Ferguson and several other North County communities.