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 real significant price 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 took part eagerly 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 and the Klu Klux Klan (KKK) terrorized Black voters despite their Constitutional Amendment rights.

It was not until the Voting Rights Act of 1965, signed by President Lyndon Johnson over 100 years after the Civil War and Emancipation ended, 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 who gets to decide exactly which voters are “qualified.”

In order to fully understand the importance of voting rights, we would 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 under certain leaders.

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