In the aftermath of the Civil War and with the ratification of the 13th Amendment in December 1865, an estimated 4 million former slaves – men, women, and children – were finally granted their freedom.
But as Frederick Douglass said in May 1865, one month after the Union victory at Appomattox signaled the end of the war: “Slavery is not abolished until the Black man has the ballot.”
For Douglass and other Black Americans, the right to vote was an essential characteristic of full citizenship because it secured true freedom and self-determination. When the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified in February 1870 – which prohibited the denial of the right to vote based on race, color, or previous condition of servitude – there was reason for optimism.
However, white Southerners who opposed Black men having voting rights – and it was only men to whom the amendment referred – merely intensified their efforts to maintain control, using violence, intimidation, and legal shenanigans to circumvent the Constitution and restore white supremacy.
But an unredacted reading of American history illustrates that white supremacy never had to be restored. Rather, it has always been maintained, firmly rooted in the soil of our nation, even before our independence from England. And for African Americans, the fight against this injustice continues today.
Despite the Voting Rights Act, the landmark federal statute signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson on Aug. 6, 1965 and enacted to derail the political chokehold of the Jim Crow South and related discriminatory structures nationwide, African Americans still battle against white supremacy and voter suppression.
What’s at stake? Power, privilege, prestige, and a lot of money.
For many, the latest iteration of Jim Crow is the SAVE Act (Safeguard American Voter Eligibility), all dressed up for the party in the yet-to-be-completed Trump ballroom in the guise of “election integrity.”
As the U.S. Senate votes on this legislation crafted by the president, Americans must not be fooled. This is a direct assault on the hard-won voting rights of Black people. African Americans— and all Americans for that matter, can ill afford to let centuries of struggle and victories be erased with the stroke of a pen.
“Our democracy works best when every voice is heard, not when the government creates a bureaucratic maze to silence its citizens,” Melanie L. Campbell, president and CEO of the, National Coalition on Black Civic Participation, said in a statement. “The SAVE Act is a solution in search of a problem that only serves to disenfranchise Black, Brown, young and low-income voters. We cannot let this bill take us backward.”