Throughout America’s history the franchise has been withheld from different groups. This has been possible due to weakly written laws that do not provide adequate protections. In 1965 PL 89-110 was passed, this law, commonly known as the Voting Rights Act of 1965, finally provided real protections for minorities living in southern states. In recent years the language of the law was modified within the Supreme Court to take away the law’s primary power. In the following mock Congressional testimony we will go back to 1848, 13 years before the American Civil War, and provide evidence of why a law like PL 89-110 is necessary and commendable.
Honorable Senators and Representatives, today I would like to provide you with a compelling argument in favor of expansive voting rights for all in our Country. To begin I would like for us to turn toward our past. In the Declaration of Independence the framers of our great republic wanted to break free from
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That is why today we must make a change. In fact, instead of moving beyond subjugation, fierce battles and compromise led to three-fifths compromise which codified viewing Black’s as subhuman. Next, it failed to give our Black friends, even those that have been freed from slavery, the right of equal suffrage. To achieve this right and put an end to our hypocrisy, we must act now. The idea of an equal rights amendment to the Constitution does not go far enough toward achieving this universal suffrage (Buescher). This is because the current Constitution gives states the full ability to hold their own elections and therefore impose their own rules. Specifically, Section IV, Clause I of the Constitution explicitly gives states this power. So in the states with clear racially motivated power structures and oppression due to slavery, even if equal rights are granted it is likely the state will ignore the Constitutional Amendment because of their power to control
I cannot agree with you more Inez. “It is hard to believe that in 2017 we are still having the discussion as to whether or not every American has equal access to be able to vote.” How is this still an issue?
During the era of Andrew Jackson’s presidency, the nation seemed to be split down the middle in terms of its citizens. Obviously this is not meant to be taken literally, as the citizens of the United States were divided in terms of political views, morals, and other very important topics. One of these topics happened to be the act of expanding suffrage to people other than rich landowners. Both arguments in this debate were represented with a number of different types of evidence as to why each side was the correct way to go about shaping the way people voted in the United States and why the opposing opinion was not to be trusted. There were both pros and cons of expanding suffrage in the United States, but some were more valid than others.
Equal rights have long been sought out by the people of America and they continue to be chased after today. Several of our freedoms were originally seen by the Constitutional to be inalienable, so ingrained in what the founding fathers saw as American values that the Bill of Rights has set them in stone. Unfortunately for some, universal suffrage was not one of those rights. While voting was largely limited at the founding of America, citizens, namely white males, slowly gained the right to vote without discrimination towards age or social status. However, women remained barred from the ballot, regardless of race. Though the suffrage movement started as a woman’s social movement, it evolved into a driving force that would hold the power to put in place a nineteenth constitutional amendment.
Since its birth, The United States has always had a troubling past on giving its citizens the “right to Vote.” Initially the “ right to vote “ was an exclusive right given to white freemen and before the 15th amendment wasn’t even a true right, more of a privilege. For this reason, it is my belief that the 15th amendment was the most important. The 15th amendment is also the first of four amendments extending the Right to Vote to all in the United States. In 1869, the United States congress passes this amendment which allowed for all citizens no matter what race, color or previous condition of servitude to vote. This meant that “on paper”, this right, naturally pass on to African American. However, as demonstrated by Louisiana passing a the
The national narrative of transformation depicted in the appended PowerPoint presentation purports to explain African American's longwinded struggle for voting rights. The story begins with a newspaper advertisement of black slaves for purchase. The advertisement perpetuates the ubiquitously presumed value of black people as commodities which consecutively invalidates black people’s value as human beings. Considering black people’s undervalued reputation, they were not appreciated as citizens of the United States until 1866. The Civil Rights Act of 1866 marked the beginning of transformation, as all native-born Americans including blacks were given the rights to citizenship.
Most change can be caused by people or something with significant value. Occasionally people forget that change can also be caused by pieces of paper. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was a law passed that primarily gave African Americans the right to vote without having to take any sort of literacy tests. African Americans were widely ignored in voting rights because they were forced to take literacy tests to be eligible to vote. Having this event in our nation’s civil rights movement was a landmark that allowed the other half of our nation’s voice to be heard. “The Voting Rights Act itself has been called the single most effective piece of civil rights legislation ever passed by Congress.”(Laney 65)
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was a law passed at the time of the Civil Rights Movement. The law eliminated various devices, such as literacy tests, that were used to restrict African Americans from voting. Before the law, many African Americans were deprived from their political powers in many ways. As we approach the 50th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act it is important to know how the right to vote was won by civil rights activists who participated in non violent form of resistance to achieve change.
I think there were many events that helped the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act to pass some I would not characterize as fortunate.
Society has been significantly revolutionized since the beginnings of the United States. The very history of the country has been cursed with racism and the harsh oppression of minorities. In fact, America’s power and economy were founded on a Marxist theory of a two-class system. On the top of that system were the slave owners, and at the very bottom were the slaves themselves (Balkaran, 1999). Slavery and segregation used to be huge components in the lives of Americans. During those times, “Americans” were white, landowning men; obviously that principle has been altered a great deal. People of color, women, and the poor actually have been given suffrage by amendments in the Constitution. Although the United States’ culture and society
The United States is a country anchored on the principle of inclusivity and mutual respect. The country has a dark past characterized with instances of racial profiling and discrimination which culminated into civil unrests realized in the mid-20th century. Moving forward, the country adopted strategic frameworks that were to guide towards a new era devoid of discrimination. The aspect of political participation was one fundamental instrument that was subsequently integrated into the American social dynamics. The enactment of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 sought to empower the minority groups to participate in the electoral processes, and to eliminate the barriers that existed in the political landscape. Some of the achievements of the act
From the beginning of racial divides in society, minorities, specifically Blacks, have been discriminated against their voting rights. They have not only been unrepresented in the number of candidates running for positions but also the number of voters who are registered and participate in elections. After the Voting Rights Act of 1965, it was prohibited for voters to be racially discriminated against. But since then, many revisions have been added, tightening the rules for registering and participating in voting. Many of these rules prevent minorities from voting but aren’t considered racially discriminatory by the Supreme Court. These laws usually are created by Republican politicians, right before a major election, and in result help decrease the number of votes on the Democratic ballot, since most minorities vote Democratic. Although these laws don’t really change, some are challenged and removed by the Supreme Court on the argument that they prevent certain races from being able to vote. Throughout history, Blacks and other minorities have been targeted and prevented from participating in elections, hurting Democratic candidates through strict voting laws created by Republicans.
For many years, Americans have fought to obtain the voting rights present generations have today. From the civil war in the 1860’s, to the Selma to Montgomery march in Alabama during the 1960’s, from veteran soldiers in a struggle to survive, to the peaceful protesters abused in a chaotic frenzy. These are the factors that managed to secure future generations a right to vote. Combating the restrictive laws of voting and battling against voting discrimination, however, are the issues many American citizens have to face today. Maintaining and attaining theses rights is the pinnacle of preserving our right to vote by implementing active participation in voicing our concerns and engaging in political hearings involving our own agendas on voting.
The first section to the fifteenth amendment clearly states, “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on the account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”1 The fifteenth Amendment was passed in 1870, after the Civil War and during reconstruction. Congress wanted to act before the Radical Republicans, and White Supremacists could when it came to the voting rights of the once enslaved African Americans. In Mississippi, a state largely affected by the emancipation of slaves, African Americans had made up for more than
The Constitution gave each state the right to determine its own voting laws (May 50). This privilege has been amended to ensure that minorities, and other groups who would be otherwise left out of the voting process, are not prevented from voting in federal and state elections. The most prominent piece of legislation ensuring equal treatment of all citizens at the voting booth is the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Amended many times since its initial adoption, the Act is generally considered the most successful piece of civil rights legislation ever adopted by the United States Congress, but the relevance of this bill written more than 50 years ago has come into question in recent years (Introduction to Federal Voting Rights Laws).
A problem that compromises our democratic values is voter suppression, although several pieces of legislation have tried to take down voter suppression, particularly Jim Crow discrimination that reigned in the south until the Voting Rights Act of 1965 passed. But, it’s widely considered that