Why the 150th Anniversary of the 15th Amendment Deserves Your Attention in 2020

As the 2020 Presidential campaign unfolds, history marks the 150^th anniversary of the 15^th Amendment which gave Black men the right to vote and paved the way for a short-lived chapter of political achievement upended by the brutally oppressive Jim Crow era.

“The ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment in 1870 occurred at a time that different circles were debating who should have access to the franchise, especially given the fact that African Americans were newly-included citizens in the United States via the Fourteenth Amendment,” explains Dr. Shayla Nunnally, a Political Science professor at the University of Connecticut. “People debated whether black men should have the right to vote or whether white women should have the right to vote.  The question about the franchise was posed in such a way that people were considering whether race should be accounted over gender in who would have access to the franchise, first.”

Fifty years passed before women gained the right to vote through the 19^th Amendment.

Nunnally says, “Black women also protested for this right, even though, because of their race, they were also discriminated against in discussions and protests in which they asserted their claims for the franchise. Even members of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. participated in their first public act of social action by protesting in the mass, suffrage march on March 3, 1913 in Washington, D.C. in which they were forced to march at the back of the march, while white women were marching in front of them.”

 By that time, racial violence and other tactics were being used to suppress the efforts of black men to vote. Many years passed and lives were lost as Black men and Black women sought to exercise their right to vote granted. The Voting Rights Act of 1965, borne of the marches and protests of The Civil Rights Movement, outlawed many of the discriminatory voting practices utilized in southern states to suppress the voice of Black Americans after the Civil War. It represented a major accomplishment for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the other courageous men and women who pushed President Lyndon B. Johnson to support the legislation.

Black Voting Rights in the 21^st Century

Yet, many are concerned about a lack of voter participation among Black Americans in the 21^st century.

“Since the 1960’s I believe that Black people have become largely complacent about exercising their rights and protesting. It takes a crisis to mobilize us,” says Matt Mixon, a former television executive who works with the voting outreach organization, Souls to the Polls. “We get comfortable, and we do not demand agenda items from the people we do elect, and we do not keep the pressure on them. I believe the Democratic Party takes us for granted largely and too many of us are apathetic.”

In Wisconsin where Mixon lives, he says “multiple organizations” are working to activate voters.

“I worked on this project in 2018, and we think we made a difference, but the job has gotten bigger if anything,” states Mixon.

Using his experience with media, Mixon “drags his camera around” to give voters an opportunity to voice their opinions. Some Wisconsin voters have protested the state’s plan to purge more than 209,000 voters from the rolls. They see it as an attempt to suppress the vote.

“It was frozen, put on pause by the state Appeals Court for the first two elections, but we still have to be on guard because the Republicans are trying to push this through,” Mixon explains. “Their main objective, I assume, is to try to help Donald Trump in November.”

Across the country, reports of voter suppression are increasing. And, Nunnally voices concern that the Voting Rights Act of 1965 is vulnerable to judicial and legislative decisions.

“Today, this act is practically nullified, due to the Shelby County, Alabama v. Holder (2013) U.S. Supreme Court case, which found Section 4 of the act to be unconstitutional, and the U.S. Congress has not yet passed legislation to correct this unconstitutionality,” she adds.

For a group of Americans who have faced significant hurdles in their fight for the franchise, the future may involve more legal skirmishes, a dire reality unforeseen more than a century ago when passage of the 15^th Amendment suggested long-awaited and permanent electoral inclusion.