The Right to Vote, Denied

– Activity Prompt: The right to vote is often held up as an American ideal. Nevertheless, there have been those in society who have been disenfranchised and kept out of the political process through intimidation, legislation, or other means. One of the most clear examples of this tension between democracy and disenfranchisement is in the treatment of freedmen after the Civil War.
– – The essay must include 1 or 2 paragraphs with at least 275 words. You have to use the two primary sources included in Word file, as well as the contextual information that you have learned about voting rights and internet source. You must answers the question: How were black people granted—and denied—participation in American democracy during Reconstruction? Consider how these sources relate to and provide insight into the right to vote for African Americans. How was participation encouraged? How was it prevented? Why? What was the result?

ANSWER

The Right to Vote, Denied

It is everyone’s right to vote as everyone is entitled to give their opinion on the leaders they feel would represent them in the best way possible while also addressing their needs. In the USA, people of color’s rights were violated, and they did not have the right to vote (Lichtman et al., 2018). This paper will look at how black people were granted and denied participation in the American democracy during reconstruction.

The black men were not allowed to vote until the fifteenth amendment was passed. Their participation in the elections was encouraged by organizing a freedom vote, which was not an actual election but acted as an election process. This motivated them to come out and vote and express their rights (Lichtman et al., 2018). However, this was met by very many obstacles as voting rights activists were met by strong opposition from the law enforcers and the Ku Klux clan. Some were beaten while others were killed in the process of fighting for their rights, as stated by the speech given in the 1871 congress by a group of black men from Kentucky pleading for help from the federals Ku Klux clan was attacking them at night. This was done to oppress them so they could not participate in the elections as that was the white man’s wish (Hannah-Jones et al., 2019). It was further met by the opposing grandfather clause that restricted them from voting. This occurred among the southern black people.

The black men’s rights to vote were restricted by imposing taxes in the polls, fraud, and tests to measure their literacy levels. This posed a problem for black people since most of them were not even educated. The grandfather clause stated that those men who were allowed to vote could not vote were restricted, or those whose fathers were allowed to vote could not vote anymore. This was the famous method to specify black people from voting before 1867. That changed after the fifteenth amendment, which activists such as Martin Luther King and other civil rights movements pushed. Thus black men were allowed to vote after the amendment, giving rise to the voting rights act (Lichtman et al., 2018).

Work(s) Cited

Hannah-Jones, Nikole. “Our democracy’s founding ideals were false when they were written. Black Americans have fought to make them true.” The New York Times (2019).

Lichtman, Allan J. The embattled vote in America. Harvard University Press, 2018.