The opening speaker, Tom Tancredo, at that fancy “tea party” that was covered the other day by all the news outlets didn’t win any friends by saying we need to reinstate “literacy tests to vote.”

I would have said “basic civics tests, similar to the ones people have to take to become citizens.”

“Literacy tests” are what they called the extremely difficult, un-passable without a law degree, tests they gave blacks in the south up to the 60s to keep them from voting.
That guy’s wording allowed Rachel Maddow to call all tea partiers racist.
MWD