Under the baobab: People have given it all for voter rights. Those rights are under attack

Hi Neighbors,

Today, October 19th, is the deadline for registering to vote in the November 3rd elections. If you haven’t registered yet, put down the newspaper and go to www.pavoterservices.pa.gov and register. We will wait…

Voting is the most sacred duty we have as citizens in this democracy. It is a privilege won through the sacrifice of patriots who have gone before us. They put their lives and treasure on the line so that we might have a say in electing those engines who pull the train of the republic. Today most American citizens are eligible to vote. It has not always been that way.

At the founding of the country only white men who owned property could vote, about 6% of the population. It wasn’t until 1828 that non-propertied white males could vote in the majority of states. In 1868 the 14th Amendment granted citizenship to all people born or naturalized in the US. In 1870 the 15th Amendment prevented states from denying the right to vote to any persons because of “race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” These amendments enfranchised the newly emancipated formerly enslaved persons. However, during the next century, beginning in 1877, those rights were eroded and crushed by the systematic terrorism of white supremacy.

Women, who represented over fifty percent of the population, were not guaranteed the right to vote until the 19th Amendment, ratified a hundred years ago. The right to directly vote for U.S. senators was affirmed by the 17th Amendment in 1913. Native people were granted citizenship and the right to vote by the Indian Citizenship Act in 1924. Chinese immigrants were given the right of citizenship by the Magnuson Act in 1943. Eighteen-year-olds were given the right to vote by the 26th Amendment in 1971 after many questioned the fairness of requiring young men to be drafted, but not allowing them the right to vote.

The disenfranchisement of African-Americans which began during the 19th century in the South, continued unabated until the civil rights movement of the ‘60s. In 1964 the 24th Amendment abolished the poll tax for national elections, which was long used to suppress the African-American vote. The same year, 1,200 of us went to Mississippi to assist African-Americans to register to vote. Less than 1% of the eligible Black electorate in the state were registered. The KKK burned our churches and freedom houses. Several people were killed by white supremacists.

A year later John Lewis, MLK and others led the Selma to Montgomery March across the Edmund Pettus Bridge to demand the right to vote. They were attacked by police and beaten with clubs and tear gassed. John had his head fractured. During the proceeding demonstration several people were killed by white supremacists. President Johnson seeing the slaughter on the bridge pushed through Voting Rights Act of 1965, which protected voter rights for minorities.

Today the Voting Rights Act and other voter protection measures are under attack through voter ID laws, prohibition of mail-in ballots, and other forms of intimidation. Using the lie that voter fraud is rampant some state legislatures are suppressing minority voting rights in an effort to maintain white hegemony. Welcome to 1877.