If you have not already voted – you are undecided, disillusioned, resentful or just plain tired of it all – realize that people like you who care about class justice must vote. It is an act of resistance. Why?
When the U.S. Constitution was adopted on June 21, 1788, voting was left to the states. With rare exception, only white Anglo-Saxon Protestant males, who own property and were older than 21 were allowed to vote.* So, only those with extreme class advantage were given this right, one that many of us have taken for granted for decades now.
But most of us also know that the right to vote was doled out to those of us with limited class advantage slowly and painfully. Black men were “allowed” to vote in 1870 but racist AND classist obstacles like poll taxes and literacy tests (even in states like Connecticut) kept most from doing so for generations. Of course, henchmen for the owning classes meted out violence on Black men with some class advantage who tried to vote.
It took until 1920 for women to “earn” the opportunity to vote, but Black women in many southern states were not able to vote until many years later. According to History.com:
“Native Americans—both men and women—did not gain the right to vote until the Snyder Act of 1924, four years after the ratification of the 19th Amendment and more than 50 years after the passage of the 15th Amendment. Even then, some Western states, including Arizona, New Mexico and Utah, didn’t grant Native Americans the right to vote until the 1940s and ‘50s. It wasn’t until the Cable Act of 1922 that women were allowed to keep their citizenship – and gain the right to vote – if they were married to an immigrant (who had to be eligible to become a U.S. citizen).
In Puerto Rico, literate women won the right to vote in 1929, but it wasn’t until 1935 that all women were given that right. Realize that literacy tests were extremely difficult to pass.**
And Asian American immigrant women were denied the right to vote until 1952 when the Immigration and Nationality Act allowed them to become citizens.”
If this does not convince you that voting is radical, you know that there are those with great class privilege in the United States who are using every advantage they have right now, money, access to media and social media, connections and more, to keep the rest of us from voting. According to the Brennan Center, states have added almost 100 laws restricting voting since the Voting Rights Act was rendered nearly toothless a decade ago.
I know you share UU Class Conversations’ passion for class justice and an end to classism. So, voting is something you must do, right? Happy voting. And thank you for ensuring that this right continues with people who care about it as much as you do
* A few states allowed free Black men to vote, and New Jersey also included unmarried and widowed women who owned property.
** https://www.history.com/news/19th-amendment-voter-suppression
