“The Right to Count” A Registering to Vote story

November 4th, 2008

In today’s complex world of American diplomacy, there are many called to duty but few are chosen to represent the most powerful nation in the land, as its leader, head of state, commander and chief and as president of the United States. For many this act of so called freedom and so called democracy came at a price that most “Black Americans” could not afford dating back over a century.

Even after the Civil War and Emancipation, southern states excluded Blacks from voting via “Black Code” laws. On April 15, 1865, President Andrew Johnson, directed the states to allow only white voters to take part in constitutional conventions, giving them the power to say who could and could not vote in their state!

From the 1870s through most of the 1900s, Blacks were blocked from voting by threats of violence, poll taxes, and literacy tests however, voting was restricted to men. Women and children eagerly took part in political events until the 1876 presidency of Rutherford B. Hayes. Hayes 1876 presidency was detrimental to the state of Black voters’ rights as he pulled federal troops out of the South allowing the Klu Klux Klan (KKK) to terrorized Black voters despite their Constitutional Amendment rights.

It was not until the 1965, Voting Rights Act was signed by President Lyndon Johnson that it became illegal to stop Blacks from voting. With the presidential election upon us, it is more important than ever to exercise your right to vote! In a 2000 ruling, the Supreme Court stated that the Constitution “does not protect the right of all citizens to vote, but rather the right of all qualified citizens to vote”, and exactly who gets to decide which voters are “qualified.”

In order to fully understand the importance of voting rights, we suggest each and every American with any doubt about why it’s not a good thing to leave voting rights in the hands of the states…go back and read the historical struggles, WE have face as a nation, as a people under certain leaderships.

Some leaders have helped to erase the line of division and some have done everything in their power to increase this division at the cost of of its citizens, blood, sweat and tears. According to local and state government, voting is not a right, but a privilege that is granted or withheld at the discretion on both local and state levels.

In 2001 Civil Rights leader and U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., introduced House Resolution 28, calling for an amendment to the Constitution that would secure all voters rights and astonishing, he had zero supporters…Zero (0) and in February of 2007, Jackson reintroduced that measure with 49 co-sponsors.

In this fight for equal voting rights many have risked and loss their lives including Civil Rights workers, Jimmy Lee Jackson, Viola Liuzzo, Reverend James Reeb, James E. Chaney, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman, John F. Kennedy and Reverened Martin Luther King Jr., and for that we owe them our voice.

As a people we cannot drop the ball, please team up to elect the next president of the United States, according to their ability to assemble change.

“The Right to Count” A Registering to Vote story

November 4th, 2008

“When Makin Money” The HSAN Story

January 7th, 2009

A Hip Hop Soda Shop? The Hip Hop Soda Shop Story

July 2nd, 2009

Law & Order in our court!

June 18th, 2009

“Throw the Ball to Her!” Browns Mill Lady Jacket’s story

June 8th, 2009

“”We Can Fly” The Dr. Stewart Fulbright Story Pt. 2

June 25th, 2009

Runaway Loves. The Ludacris Foundation story

June 26th, 2009

It’s at the Y! The YMCA story

July 3rd, 2009

A Hip Hop Soda Shop? The Hip Hop Soda Shop Story

July 2nd, 2009