10/23/2018
The clock is ticking. Get out and vote next week. Whether you are Republican, a Democrat, Independent, man or woman, young or old or somewhere in between, make your mark and Vote next Tuesday. Look how long it took us to get here and look how far we have come. Every vote counts.
Did you know:
• In 1870, when the 15th Amendment was ratified, it prohibited states from denying a male citizen the right to vote based on “race, color or previous condition of servitude.” However, various discriminatory practices were used over the following decades to prevent African Americans, particularly those in the South, from exercising their right to vote.
• The 19th Amendment, adopted in 1920, prohibited the federal government and states from denying U.S. citizens the right to vote on the basis of s*x. Just months following its enactment, more than 8 million women across the U.S. voted in elections for the first time.
• The Indian Citizenship Act of 1924, also known as the Snyder Act, granted full citizenship to the indigenous people of the U.S.: “Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That all non-citizen Indians born within the territorial limits of the United States be, and they are hereby, declared to be citizens of the United States: Provided That the granting of such citizenship shall not in any manner impair or otherwise affect the right of any Indian to tribal or other property.” Not until the passing of this Act were Native Americans allowed to vote.
• Lyndon B. Johnson’s Voting Rights Act of 1965 was enacted to overcome all legal barriers at state and local levels that were used to deny African Americans their right to vote under the 15th Amendment.
Exercise your right and Vote.
