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235 D Chapter Sixty-Nine d A TesT CAse Through his gold-rimmed glasses, the white-haired judge focused on me with great intensity .His resemblance to Spencer Tracy was hard to overlook.“Madam,”he said,“as I understand the situation, the Attorney General of the State of New York has denied you the right to vote in the elections because, during your recent naturalization procedure, you refused the mandatory literacy test. This court is asking you for an explanation.”His clear blue eyes pierced me. Those eyes, I felt keenly, would not tolerate a lie. Six months before, I had joyfully and wholeheartedly taken the oath of allegiance to the constitution of my new country, the United States of America, vowing “to forsake all other potentates.”With this oath, I had honored the promise once given to my father that I would leave Germany and seek my fortune and that of my children under another star.Like his mother,my little son and all those coming after him would be members of theAmerican family, not “German Americans” but “Americans of German descent.” Shortly after receiving my firstAmerican passport,I registered to participate in the upcoming communal elections.For the first time in my life,I would be entitled to cast my vote as a Democrat and an equal citizen of my chosen country.On Election Day,excited beyond description, I found myself among the first voters to arrive at the polls in the old Congregational Church in Brooklyn Heights, where Abraham Lincoln had worshipped almost a century before and where, a few months earlier, my American-born husband, Ross, and I had been in the crowd attending a service, at which the African American minister from the South had left an unforgettable impression on me. Never would I to forget the way Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. firmly held my hand on the way out. The date of the elections fell on one of those balmy late spring days, so rare in the city of New York, when the winter ice has just melted and stifling summer heat has not yet set in. I had left the house on Willow Street, enjoying the clear, refreshing air blowing from the East River; even the birds seemed to be singing just for me. In the distance across the river, the Wall Street skyline and the silhouette of the Brooklyn Bridge gleamed in the early morning sun. Later, after performing my duty as a citizen, I would drive across the onehundred -year-old structure, down to the Fulton Fish Market to handpick a couple of live lobsters from a tank for that night’s dinner. I was sure it was one of those days when absolutely nothing could go wrong. ParT Three 236 In front of the church,two stocky,red-faced policemen,unmistakably of Irish descent, twirled their sticks with the elegance of professional jugglers.Already in light blue summer shirtsleeves, they greeted me with broad grins, “Good morning, ma’am.” With nametags not yet mandatory, I could only guess that their names might be O’Reilly or O’Malley, here to uphold law and order, protecting the rights of the voters, including mine. In those days, most of the city’s policemen still seemed to be Irish. They came from dynasties of policemen , the profession of New York cop handed down from father to son. In the church vestibule I approached a long table behind which several women, representing the Board of Elections, were busy comparing the names of the voters to those in their registers.“Here you are,”the woman said cheerfully, after locating my name. But then she suddenly hesitated,took a good look at me,again at the book,and slowly added,“Sorry, Mrs. Donaldson, but you cannot vote!”Twice she had to repeat the words, and still I was at a loss to grasp their meaning. It was as if the floor had opened up to swallow me; I could not believe my ears.Tearing the register away from her, I turned it around and found something scribbled next to my name. My blood seemed to freeze because what I saw was“barred from voting by the State Attorney General.” Barred from voting? But why? This, I decided, had to be a terrible mistake . As far as I could remember, I had not stolen silver spoons, threatened the president’s life,or prostituted myself.The woman shrugged her shoulders,but seeing me dumbfounded, proposed that, if...

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