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Voting Changes Lives and Makes History
Voting is more popular than ever, yet I have never seen the United States of America so divisive. This is a shocking realization considering I was born in 1960 in the midst of the civil rights movement, the rise of hippies, free love and decades of Reaganomics that followed.
History of Voting and Civil Rights
In the 1960s, segregation was normalized and legally sanctioned in some states. Interracial marriage was banned until 1967 when the Supreme Court struck down state laws after a landmark decision in Loving v Virginia. Many believed that a black man had no rights that a white man took for granted. In the infamous Dred Scott vs Sanford case of 1857, Supreme Court Justice Roger Brooke Taney ruled that African Americans were inferior, had no rights as citizens. Many states held onto that belief system for more than a century. Today, many people still believe this way.
In 1964, the Civil Rights Act abolished discrimination based on race, religion, ethnicity or gender. Still, this did not deter the opposition. They would use every subversive tactic to suppress nonwhite voters. They implement obstacles from a poll tax to competency tests. White Americans did not want people of color to vote. Citizens of African, Mexican, and Asian Americans were turned away from registering.
