A Rich and Embattled history

It's hard to beleive that in 2008, many African-Americans still feel its not that important for them to vote.. Many people have forgotten our history, and the battle our ancestors, grandparents, and our parents had to endure for us to even have this auspicious opportunity.

Let's not forget that it's only been 142 years that the 14th amendment was passed, changing the status of African-Americans from being counted as 3/5 of a person to a whole person.

1869 marked the beginning of "Black Codes," or state laws that restricted the freedoms of African Americans. Among the freedoms restricted was the freedom to exercise the right to vote. Literacy tests, poll taxes, hiding the locations of the polls, economic pressures, threats of physical violence, and other strategies to suppress the African American vote were either found in the Black Codes or flowed from them.

Then finally in 1965, only 43 years ago , the Voting Rights Act was passed to finally give us full voting rights, in the country we helped built.

It's sad to see that in 2008, we have allowed ourselves to forget the struggle we as a people endured to get the right to vote, and now that we have it, we take it for granted.

Whether you vote Democrat or Republican, if you are an African-American you need to get out and vote!!!