By Paul Bremmer
All the left-wing fuss over voter ID laws truly confounds Pat Boone, the legendary American entertainer revealed during a Wednesday appearance at the Heritage Foundation.
During a question-and-answer period, one audience member asked Boone how he felt about "efforts to restrict voting" through such measures as requiring a photo ID or limiting early voting.
"Well, of course, I want every citizen to vote. I said every citizen," Boone emphasized. "I don't understand the problem. I really don't. I don't know what the issue is, because if a person wants to go vote, that person probably has a driver's license, or that person probably has a birth certificate."
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There are many other situations where Americans have to show identification, he noted, such as when purchasing alcohol at the supermarket. The longtime singer and actor doesn't buy that some legitimate American citizens can't prove they have the right to vote, calling that idea "spurious."
"I really don't understand that," said Boone, a periodic WND columnist. "I just think that the vote is such a sacred privilege, and it is restricted to citizens and we ought to be able to see that that happens."
A study released shortly before the 2014 midterms estimated that 6.4 percent of all non-citizens voted in the 2008 election and 2.2 percent voted in 2010.
Of course, there are other forms of voter fraud as well. Multiple instances of fraud were reported even during the early voting period for the 2014 midterms. In Arizona, for example, a liberal activist was caught on camera stuffing hundreds of ballots into a ballot box. In Maryland and Illinois, several voting machines switched votes cast for Republican candidates to Democrat candidates.
Those who make accusations of voter fraud have often been called racists, but Boone is no racist, as became clear based on a story he told during his Heritage speech. In 1960, some promoters in South Africa asked him to come perform in the country. However, Boone refused because South Africa's apartheid policy would have barred non-whites from coming to his show. The promoters kept coming back and upping the offer, but Boone continued to politely refuse because blacks would not be allowed to see him sing.
Finally, behind closed doors, the promoters told Boone if he gave them his "gentleman's word" that he would not publicize this, then the government would suspend apartheid just for his concerts. Boone accepted, because publicity was not all that important to him.
Then he received death threats.
"In Durban, which was my first appearance, we did get threats and written warnings that if I appeared onstage in this big arena with a mixed audience, which was unprecedented, that I would not leave the stage alive," Boone recalled.
Boone didn't dance around on stage very often, but that night, he moved around constantly, keeping his eyes on the audience. Fortunately, no one shot at him.
Several days later, Boone was giving a concert in a soccer stadium in Salisbury, Rhodesia (now Harare, Zimbabwe). Anyone could buy tickets and come to the show, but blacks and other minorities were kept behind a set of iron barriers, farther away from the stage than the white attendees. While singing one particularly rousing gospel medley, Boone looked up to see the blacks climbing over the rails and pouring onto the field, clapping along with the music. They came up to the edge of the stage, blocking the view of the white people that were seated.
Boone said he was worried. He remembered thinking, "Oh boy, we're gonna have a riot right here, and I'm in the middle of it."
However, the white concert-goers didn't get upset; instead, they stood and clapped along with everyone else.
The next day, as Boone was leaving town, he saw a newspaper headline which proclaimed that, for the first time in several months, there was no reported violence the previous day.
Not only did Boone's music bring whites and blacks together in Africa that day, but one well-known civil rights leader believes the singer helped improve race relations in America. Boone said he was recently promoting a new album of R&B classics on the Rainbow Coalition's radio show when Rev. Jesse Jackson, founder of the Rainbow Coalition, called in. What he said stunned Boone.
According to Boone, Jackson said:
"I think Pat Boone did more for race relations through his music than any other performer. By that I mean, here's this white kid in Nashville in the South, and he's not only doing the music that white folks knew nothing about and didn't think they wanted to know anything about, not only is he doing the music and having hits with it, but he likes the performers, the original performers – Little Richard and Chuck Berry and Fats Domino – and making it seem – maybe the white folks and their parents are saying, 'Well maybe this is OK after all, if Pat Boone, this white Christian kid in Nashville is doing these songs.'"
Boone didn't agree with Jackson on all of the reverend's political views, but he was truly appreciative of the reverend's comments.
"For Jesse Jackson to make that kind of a statement, I was so taken aback, I sent him a pair of my white buck shoes," Boone said. "There was a bond between us because I had no idea that he had this thought about what I was doing. It was unintentional. It was just the result of the opportunities that came my way."
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