{"id":149,"date":"2020-06-08T21:29:53","date_gmt":"2020-06-08T21:29:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.messiah.edu\/politicsinternationalrelations\/?p=149"},"modified":"2020-06-08T21:31:19","modified_gmt":"2020-06-08T21:31:19","slug":"individuals-in-the-voting-rights-mosaic-of-the-political-system-civic-mind-series","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.messiah.edu\/politicsinternationalrelations\/2020\/06\/08\/individuals-in-the-voting-rights-mosaic-of-the-political-system-civic-mind-series\/","title":{"rendered":"Individuals in the Voting Rights Mosaic of the Political System (Civic Mind )"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Retracing<\/a>

Retracing the march over the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, AL<\/p><\/div>\n

(What is\u00a0Civic Mind<\/em>?\u00a0 Read our\u00a0welcome post for the series<\/a>!)<\/p>\n

As I have spent the last couple of weeks thinking deeply about the events that have given rise to the most recent round of social justice protests — the deaths of George Floyd, Breanna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery most recent in a long line of others — I spent time assembling a puzzle.\u00a0 As something that I had not done in quite a while, due to personal and professional responsibilities, I had forgotten how such tasks allow you to both work and process your thoughts.\u00a0 I was also reminded of the way that individuals contribute to a larger picture, as well as previous writing I had done on the topic in 2016, as a participant in the Returning to the Roots of Civil Rights tour, which I thought relevant to share again, with a few updates from the original.<\/p>\n

Observing the reactions of individuals to current events, it is clear that our own life experiences expose us to different segments of the larger system.\u00a0 The sense we make of our own experiences, especially in trying to understand the larger context, can help us better understand whether those experiences are isolated or part of a larger pattern.\u00a0 Patterns in many spheres of life have differed along racial lines in our society. Although economic opportunity<\/a> and interaction with the legal system<\/a>, among others, have reflected significant racial gaps, one of the most fundamental areas has involved access to voting rights, which allow people the ability to speak into and be represented by the political system. \u00a0Despite constitutional amendment and legislation, barriers remain today<\/a> and impact groups differently.\u00a0 The better that we understand the circumstances of other\u2019s life experiences may differ from our own, we can promote a more inclusive system of democratic government that better protects the rights of others \u2013 as well as ourselves.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

(June 23, 2016 – originally titled, “The Ever-Present Relevance of Civil Rights Within Our Democracy”<\/a>)<\/p>\n

\u201dA law is unjust if it is inflicted on a minority that, as a result of being denied the right to vote, had no part in enacting or devising the law. Who can say that the legislature of Alabama which set up that state\u2019s segregation laws was democratically elected? Throughout Alabama all sorts of devious methods are used to prevent Negroes from becoming registered voters, and there are some counties in which, even though Negroes constitute a majority of the population, not a single Negro is registered. Can any law enacted under such circumstances be considered democratically structured?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2013 Martin Luther King, Jr. (1963) \u201cLetter from a Birmingham Jail\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

For nine days, we traveled through nine states, visiting historical and contemporary sites of significance and talking with veterans of the Civil Rights movement. Of all the impactful takeaways \u2013 and there were many \u2013 this experience affirmed my value of civic engagement, especially the extent to which the right to vote supersedes other rights and privileges because of its ability to check government power and inhibit the infringement by citizens on the rights of one another through legislation. Potential weakening and reversals of legislation upholding citizens\u2019 rights to register and vote reveal that not only must we appreciate the sacrifices for this right, but we must also remain vigilant in its ongoing protection.<\/p>\n

My first personal experience with the topic of race and ethnicity \u2013 at least the first of which I had awareness \u2013 came in grade school when something inconceivable, at least to my elementary-school mind, occurred. One morning, in the early 1980s, I awoke to news and a picture of a burning cross, at a home just next to my school in the suburbs of Buffalo, NY. That home belonged to a class-mate, our school\u2019s only African American student. This incident shocked, sickened and scared me; I can only imagine the impact it had on her and her family.<\/p>\n

Following a rather superficial education in this area during elementary and secondary school, not an uncommon experience even to this day, I began to dig in deeply to these issues in both my undergraduate and graduate studies in political science: Context courses, legal and other policy courses, and even a year working as a research assistant to a faculty member working on a book about Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act (which denied federal funding to entities discriminating on the basis of characteristics prohibited in the legislation). My academic work \u2013 teaching, research and institutional service -has had continued attention on this issue, especially as it relates to civic engagement. The civil rights tour vividly reinforced the importance of voting, as well as the sacrifices, which are often underappreciated in low voter turnout, made by those citizens who fought to exercise their rights.<\/p>\n

After all these years, it is still mindblowing to consider that it took almost 100 years to pass a voting rights act to protect the right guaranteed to African Americans by the 15th Amendment. This delay is especially troubling because the lack of voting rights equated, as Dr. King noted, to a lack of representation in effect, both in the candidates who won and in the legislation that they passed. Although the right was backed by constitutional amendment, many tactics degraded African American access to the ballot<\/a>, including but not limited to:<\/p>\n

Legal barriers<\/em><\/p>\n