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#VotingRightsMatter!

Alvin Hargrove
Sep 29, 2018
2 min read

#votingrightsmatter! was inspired by a black & white photo of a few young brothers with one, having 'VOTE' etched on the forehead of his white-face makeup. As part of my Black Americana series it behooves me to investigate the image/subject further. I learned the men was participating in the Selma to Montgomery Civil Rights march 'March on Selma' in Alabama. The Black citizens were protesting the injustices and voting restrictions of Black Alabamians and Black southerners throughout the southern regions.

The three brothers flanking VOTE are representation of the Pan African flag aka Black Liberation, the three Black Liberation colors represents:

RED: the blood that unites all people of black African ancestry, and shed of liberation

BLACK: Black people whose existence as a nation, though not a nation-state, is affirmed by the existence of the flag

GREEN: the abundant natural wealth of Africa

13 Cents is the cost of this US Postage Stamp which the painting is an image of. See the perforation around the scene. The US Postal service is one of the few government agencies explicitly authorized by the United States Constitution. That same Constitution had an amendment with a compromise (Three-Fifth Compromise, 1787) that counted blacks as no more than three-fifth a man, so every three out of every five slaves was counted as a one person.

In 1865 the Thirteenth Amendment (13 cents) to the United States Constitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. They are also stripped of their voting rights in most states to this day. I had come to realize from 1865 when slavery was abolished in this here fine United States, it took 100 years or so for those freed men to be granted the right to vote as a natural born citizen.

In 1965 the Voting Rights Act was a landmark piece of federal legislation that prohibited racial discrimination in voting. The door of equality was opened wider that year, paving the way for a number of legislation that improved the quality of life at historical rates.

I AM A MAN. Sanitation Strike in Memphis 1968. The year and the place the King's (Civil Rights Activist MLK Jr) physical life was taken.

Within six years after the Votings Rights Act another landmark even took place. In June of 1971 President Nixon declared drug abuse "public enemy number one" which can be debated as the birth to the War of Drugs enforcement (the New Jim Crow Movement).