Herblock uses irony to address the discrimination African Americans faced when registering to vote, especially before the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In Macon County, Alabama, home to the Tuskegee Institute, where eighty-four percent of the population was African American in 1958, the Tuskegee Civic Association pushed for voter registration. While ninety-seven percent of the white population registered, only eight percent of the African Americans qualified.  When the newly created Civil Rights Commission opened a televised inquiry on December 8, 1958, viewers throughout the country heard erudite African Americans recount the unfair treatment they received.