Saturday marks the 40th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, the law that finally gave blacks the right to vote. It’s amazing how recent that was.
I wasn’t born when President Lyndon Johnson signed that landmark piece of legislation in 1965, but I remember reading about it as a kid, not sure if I should cry about it or be angry. I still feel that uneasy mix of emotions today.
It’s hard to believe that just 40 years ago a huge chunk of the population couldn’t vote. The 15th Amendment, which granted voting rights to blacks in 1870, meant little in the South, where the racist and sneaky political machine created obstacles that kept blacks from the polls: literacy tests, property-ownership requirements, poll taxes and grandfather clauses.
When those barriers didn’t work, threats of violence and lynching did. And it wasn’t just African-Americans; Mexican-Americans throughout the Southwest and Asians in the South and West were similarly disenfranchised.
Those obstacles are gone, but there are those who say we no longer need some of the provisions of the Voting Rights Act, which are set to expire in 2007.
During the 2000 presidential election, hundreds of black voters in Florida had their names purged from voter registration lists, a mistake the state attributed to an error made while trying to remove convicted felons. But then it happened again in 2004. These “oops!” moments make it clear we need serious monitoring.
Three key provisions – not allowing Southern states to change voting procedures without U.S. Justice Department approval, using federal examiners to monitor polling places and providing assistance to citizens who aren’t fluent in English – will expire in two years if Congress doesn’t vote to extend them.
While there will be many events commemorating the watershed legislation, it won’t be just a celebration. Civil rights leaders are correct to be wary of those who’d like to take us back to 1965. Doing away with these provisions would chip away at the rights of not only African-
American voters, but other minorities and poor whites, as well.
That’s why Saturday’s March down Martin Luther King Jr. Drive in Atlanta is being called “Keep the Vote Alive.” (It’s a take on Jesse Jackson’s mantra “Keep Hope Alive.”)
Jackson is kicking off a two-year campaign to make Americans aware of the provisions that will expire. He is calling on President Bush to renew them.
“These are important provisions,” said Ronald Walters, professor of government and politics at the University of Maryland in College Park. “When you look at what happened during the elections in 2000 and 2004, it’s clear that the right to vote is not yet stable; it’s not yet secure.”
Walters, author of “Freedom is Not Enough: Black Voters, Black Candidates, and American Presidential Politics,” said there have been plenty of recent cases of polls being moved at the last minute or of officials not opening enough voting precincts in certain areas – which explains why on Election Day 2004 in some heavily black precincts of Ohio, voters had to wait in line more than six hours to vote.
That fact helps debunk the myth that black people don’t vote. They do, especially when there are big issues at stake. During the 2004 presidential election, 12 percent of those who voted were black – proportionate with the black population.
Democracy works best when we have full participation and protections to ensure that voters can vote easily. Walters says the best measure of accountability is having people in the process acting as watchdogs.
“There is no substitute for hands-on participation in this process,” Walters said. “We should not leave it to anonymous officials.”
Cindy Rodríguez’s column runs Tuesdays and Thursdays in Scene. Contact her at 303-820-1211 or crodriguez@denverpost.com.
