Introduction
African American population has struggled tremendously for their rights and acts since the growth of American society in Twentieth century. Before the Voting Act of 1965, which was articulated voting rights to African Americans after a series of violent protests in Alabama. This was done to put an end to the White discrimination against Black Americans. Back in 2013, a part of this Act was withheld that put restrictions on making changes in the law, especially in states with history of discrimination. President Obama laid emphasis on the need to invoke that part of the law. His focus was to reinforce the idea of complete freedom of voting given to African Americans. The overall emphasis on civil rights of African American population in the U.S history has been a result of the discrimination against the blacks merely on the basis of their skin color. The paper synthesizes two articles on the issue, one of them based on the past and the second one discusses Obama’s recent address to memorial speech in Alabama in 2015.
Synthesis
1965 statute was formulated so as to ensure the adherence to Fifteenth Amendment in Southern part of the United States. The aim was to safeguard the elections from racial hatred and bias against Black. The ground that this statute took was constitutional and had strong roots in the political system of the country, as African Americans sacrificed their honor and lives for the protection of democracy (Americanbar.org, 2016). The principle behind anti-discriminatory law was to not focus on the color of the skin while the voting rights were given to the citizens. With the passage of time, the principle lost its essence when the government changed the meaning of disfranchisement. There are issues faced by Black voters as the electoral procedure diminished the rights of voting. The law was aimed at extending rights to the minorities, but its strength was confined to minorities struggling for their complete voting rights due to the lack of white Politicians’ interest in Black population’s right.
While Obama addressed Black Americans in Alabama in 2015 on the limitations of the 1965 statute, his state Texas still required one of the several government issues photo IDs to cast the vote (USA TODAY, 2016). There are many other factors that complicate the process of voting for African American population. A study indicates that hundreds of thousands of African Americans cannot cast their votes due to their inability to prove their identification to the government officials. This restricts their right to vote, which makes situation no better than the situation before the voting Act in 1965. On the other hand, the reports of voting fraud has been scarce, indicating that the Black citizens are as much capable of voting as are the White Americans. On the other hand, many people do not go out to vote for change, despite having all the facilities and chances to vote. If this population can be brought to polling stations, there will be positive impact on the political scene of the country as the African Americans have had been discriminated and denied their voting rights for decades in the U.S history.
Conclusion
Despite the fact discussed above, majority of population is still not aware of the issues that African American population faces in utilizing their right to vote. Many of them cannot cast vote due to the hurdles in the voting process for the Southern states. The held-back part of the 1965 statute should be enforced again so as to provide the undisputed rights to the people of the Southern states as the real freedom to vote lies in the absolute indiscrimination against racial biases. If the politicians of the country show genuine interest in the African American rights, the discrimination against them in the voting system can be eliminated for their as well as country’s welfare.
REFERENCES
Americanbar.org,. (2016). The Voting Rights Act’s Murky Legal Landscape | Section of State and Local Government Law. Retrieved 15 February 2016, from http://www.americanbar.org/publications/state_local_law_news/2012_13/winter_2013/voting_rights_acts_m
USA TODAY,. (2016). Wickham: Time for a non-violent voter revolution. Retrieved 15 February 2016, from http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2015/03/16/voting-selma-voting-rights-act-revolution-wickham/24811557/
