Gratitude Month - Voting

 

 

 

Here is a brief history of the right to vote in case you were wondering.

 

The 14th Amendment (1868) basically states that all persons born in the United States are citizens and as such are guaranteed certain rights and privileges, one of which is the right to vote. However, this of course did not stop discrimination by race or gender. 
 

The 15th Amendment (1870) states that No citizen could be denied the right to vote 'based on race, color, or previous condition of servitude.'  
 

Still no vote for women or for many of the freed slaves either...due to Jim Crow laws. Some of which were that you had to pass a literacy test in order to vote (most of the free slaves were illiterate). Grandfather Clauses stating that if your Grandfather had the right to vote, then you had the right to vote…this of course discriminated against the freed slaves who's grandfathers obviously didn't have the right to vote. And Poll Taxes, which discriminated against the poor.  
 

The 19th Amendment (1920) states that 'No citizen shall be abridged of their right to vote based on sex.'   

Yay for women voters finally!  
 

The 24th Amendment (1964) states that 'No poll tax is allowed or failure to pay any other tax shall prevent a person from voting.'   
 

Can you believe we had to wait 94 years for that one? 
 

The 26th Amendment (1971) states that 'All persons 18 or older shall not be abridged of their right to vote.' 
 

This was of course due to the fact that we were sending our soldiers out to fight and die in war by the time they were 18, but yet they didn't even have the right to vote until they were 21. 
 

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 - 'Applied a nationwide prohibition against the denial or abridgment of the right to vote on the literacy tests on a nationwide basis.'
 

Again 95 years?

 

For the many who came before us who did not have the right to vote, and the many who came before who fought for the right to vote, we should honor their memory by exercising our right today! 

 

“The vote is the most powerful instrument ever devised by man for breaking down injustice and destroying the terrible walls which imprison men because they are different from other men. ”
― Lyndon B. Johnson