Image Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. Public DomainThe right to vote is a liberty that many Americans take for granted. For Tobias Carter, a former slave, it was a privilege he was ready to exercise.
In 1865, Carter was emancipated from slavery through the 13th Amendment. Later, Carter received full citizenship through the 14th Amendment. And by March 30, 1870, the 15th Amendmentwas adopted into the U.S. Constitution, allowing Carter to vote.
Nevertheless, in 1965, his great-great grandson, John Robert Lewis was marching through the streets of Alabama for that same right.
Can we say ironic?
Lewis, who is now a congressional representative in Georgia, discovered this bit of family history while participating in PBS' ten-part series, Finding Your Roots. In each episode, historian Henry Louis Gates uncovers the legacies of two well-known Americans--helping them answer questions about their family legacies.
Yet Lewis' family legacy offers viewers the opportunity to understand the complexity of the legal system---how one man can achieve the right to vote through a federal law yet his descendants have to fight for the right to vote because state laws created barriers to keep African-American citizens from voting. From poll taxes, literacy tests and the Grandfather Clause, Southern states consistently created and enforced laws that would never allow African-American men, and later women, the right to be fully citizens in society. However, throughout United States' history, men such as Lewis countered these acts of disenfranchisement through organizations such as the Niagara Movement and later, the NAACP and SNCC. Men such as Robert Abott, publisher of The Chicago Defender and other African-American newspapers campaigned against segregation in the South and race riots such as The Red Summer of 1919.What's your family history? How does your family history offer you an understanding of United States' history?
Suggested Reading
Thirteenth Amendment
The Reconstruction Period
The Civil Rights Movement
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