The Final page of the Voting Rights Act, signed by President of The United States Lyndon B. Johnson, the President of the Senate, and the Speaker of the House.This is one of the most significant times in the history of our country. Today is the day when the struggles for equality and the fullness of the promise of the right to vote and participate in our government come to fruition. Today we will elect a man of color as President or a woman to serve as Vice President. We have come a long way. Six amendments to the United States Constitution, in one way or another, deal with the rights of the people in this country to vote. No other issue commands such attention from our government.
My mother was nine years old when the 19th Amendment was ratified on August 18, 1920. Her mother, my dear and beloved “Noie” was 29 when she and millions of other women voted for the first time. She was denied the chance to vote in the 1912 election between William H. Taft, Woodrow Wilson and Teddy Roosevelt. Then she was denied a part in the 1916 election between Woodrow Wilson and Charles Evans Hughes. Nora Helen Gibbs Baum (“Noie”) did vote in 1920. She cast her first for Warren G. Harding, Republican Candidate for President of The United States. It is widely held that Harding’s landslide in 1920 was in a large part due to the enormous turnout of women at the polls. The reconstituted Republican Party (often pronounced “dead” by the press due to Theodore Roosevelt’s bolting from The GOP to form the Progressive Party) was resurrected. Things had changed forever with the amendment that affirms "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex’.
I was born into a political family and practically grew up in Republican Headquarters. My mother took this right to vote very seriously. She worked hard at every election of any kind for most of her life as did all of her female cousins from Indianola, Illinois. We lived in The Land of Lincoln and, by God, the party of Lincoln was going to win the day. Period. One of her cousins had a husband who was a GOP State Senator. I grew up believing that there was something sacred about voting. It is embedded in me. Never have I missed the opportunity to exercise my franchise. Never. No election is too small and no cause too trivial.
We often forget that The Civil Rights movement was mostly about voting. It was not until President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act on August 6, 1965 that the 15th Amendment was given the teeth it lacked since ratification in 1870. Somewhat less than half of my childhood was spent in Florida. We had a home near Ft. Lauderdale. The experience of living in both the North and the South gave me an interesting view of how the system worked. I was ushered out of a “Colored” bathroom when I was eight years old…naïve to the fact that we were not allowed to pee with people who had a different color of skin. It made me angry. We were not allowed to drink from the same water fountains in the South. Worse than that…few who were really affected could vote to change it. The polls were taxed and tests were administered to limit or eliminate the ability of “colored people” to protest such treatment or elect representatives to do so. Ninety-five percent of African American voters, free for the first time to vote without fear of being turned away, cast ballots for Hubert Humphrey in 1968. This number of new voters might have changed the election in other years. But 1968 was not to be the time. The situation in America was fractured beyond political recognition. Richard M. Nixon would carry the day by convincing Southern voters that he would be a “law and order” president who would keep them safe. He appealed to a “silent majority” which, in The South, meant white people. It was, however, to be different in 1976. Jimmy Carter was elected the 39th President of The United States by the smallest margin since 1916. His slim victory is attributed by many to be due to the turnout of black voters in the deep South. Things had changed forever with the amendment that affirms “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude”.
The 92nd Congress enacted the 26th Amendment which was then signed by President Nixon on July 1, 1971. People between 18 and 20 who had been doing most of the fighting and dieing in Southeast Asia could finally vote. It was a grand day for us. I voted for my first time on November 7, 1972. The new law didn’t make it in time for an earlier vote for me. There were more presidential candidates on that ballot than I have ever seen. Richard Nixon, George McGovern, George Wallace, Scoop Jackson and a whole herd of others. I will never forget the sense of awe that I experienced. It was a real right of passage. I felt like a real adult for the first time. A full citizen. The vote of young people has been volatile and unreliable. Turnout has been spotty. It was not until this year that college aged people grabbed the reigns of their power to shape the government. They have worked and are voting in record numbers. It does not matter who they are supporting. The important part is that they are engaged in the process. Things had changed forever with the amendment that affirms “The right of citizens of the United States, who are 18 years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of age”.
A young racially mixed man with a funny name and a woodsy woman from Alaska are at center stage today. How can we help but be proud? This is the United States of America. It can only happen here. Voting is sacred. My mother was right about that. Double lines in Greenville, SC at noon on November 4th are one and one half hours long. That has never happened. So go out and do it. You have a responsibility. To borrow a phrase…I’m Fired Up and Ready to Go…(not to tip my hand or anything).
Renewal and new beginnings are among the promises offered by Easter. The most compelling mystery of the season for many of us is the truth of unconditional love. This is a difficult proposition for us to understand because of our continual criticism of self and of others. Even thornier is the challenge that Jesus proposes to "be compassionate as your Father is compassionate". We are forgiven for our transgressions and we are called to forgive in the same measure. Our experience of love from other people has often been conditional and transitory. God's love is neither of these. It is a gift freely given for one and for all. No questions asked.
