“separate but equal” doctrine[10]. In some ways Jim Crow laws were the result of backlash for the federal civil rights protections enacted during the reconstruction period after the Civil War, and replaced the “Black Codes” that has existed between 1800 and 1866[11]. The result of Jim Crow was the dramatic extensive disenfranchisement of black Americans. In 1910 as few as .5 % of eligible black men were registered to vote in some districts. Not a single black American cast a vote in North Carolina between 1896 and 1904. State compelled segregation and racial discrimination persisted until the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and Jim Crow barriers to voting were not eliminated until the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965- almost 100 years afterFormer governor Matt Bevin is defending his decision to pardon a man who was convicted in 2018 of raping a child.

In a radio interview with Terry Meiners of WHAS, former governor Matt Bevin said he believed some of the people he pardoned were innocent.

"There’s a child rapist, there’s someone who beheaded a woman," Meiners started.

"These are people who have been accused of that. And in fact, convicted of that," Bevin responded. "But if I thought these people, in the instance of those two you mentioned, had actually done that, they wouldn’t be out."

Bevin said he tried to create a sentencing integrity unit while he was in office, but wasn't successful.

He also commented on several of the more high profile pardons.

"Which one are you talking about?" Bevin asked.

"A child