Vote!

There was a time when Black people and all women could not vote in this country. The Union was formed in 1776, and Black men did not get the right to vote until 1870, with the passage of the 15th Amendment. All women did not get the right to vote until 1920, with the passage of the 19th Amendment.

After the passage of the 15th Amendment, White men instituted poll taxes and literacy tests to prevent Black men from voting, and later Black women. Poll taxes were ruled Constitutional by the United States Supreme Court in Breedlove v. Shuttles in 1937. Poll taxes remained in effect until 1964, with the passage of the 24th Amendment. And of course there was the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which prohibits states and local governments from imposing any “voting qualifications or prerequisite to voting, or standard, practice, or procedure…to deny or abridge the right of any citizen to vote on account of race or color.”

And remember, countless Blacks as well as a number of a Whites were beaten, threatened and killed for Black people to possess this right to vote. If you don’t vote for any other reason, vote to honor the people who died in order to secure the vote.