Muncie Times, Muncie, Delaware County, 6 March 2008 — Page 34

Page 34 • The Muncie Times • March 6, 2008

News Briefs

continued from page 33 There was a fear that hordes of Mexicans would cross the border if they were allowed to vote. This potential, political clout for Latinos was imaginable before the Immigration Act of 1965 and NAFTA. Corporate America intends to officially annex Mexico. Compare the Monroe Doctrine. Women were generally not permitted to vote in the United States after 1787. For a brief period of time, New Jersey was a notable exception for a woman owning property and, thus, having a stake in society. Without the right to vote, women were unable to protect their property. Most state constitutions specifically banned women from entering polling booths. Women in New Jersey were disenfranchised in 1807. This ban on women entering polling booths would continue for five decades. By the 1890s, women were allowed to vote only in Wyoming, Utah, Idaho and Colorado. John W. Menard became the first Black elected to the House of Representatives in 1868, but white racism barred his admission. The Fifteenth Amendment was ratified in 1870. Thus, Menard was up the creek without a paddle. Joseph H. Rainey would be the first Black person to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Sen. Obama became the fifth person of African ancestry to take a seat in the U.S. Senate. Hiram R. Revels was the first Black U.S. senator. This happened before the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment and the Seventeenth Amendment. See the U.S. Constitution. Bruce K. Blanche would follow Revels into the U.S. Senate. After the U.S. Supreme Court decided Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896, Jim Crow would permeate Congress. Louisiana had previously drafted a grandfather clause in 1891. It would become a pattern for the South. White males could ride the coattails of their grandfathers to the polling booths. In 1901, Cong. George H. White was the only Black male in the 55th Congress. The KKK had done its job of instilling fear in Black males. Many Black males started to avoid polling booths. Upon his departure from Congress, White vowed that Black males would return soon. In 1920, an all-white, male Congress similarly ratified the Nineteenth Amendment, which enfranchised women. Jeannette Rankin, a white female, had served in Congress from 19171919. The right to vote is granted by states and not by the federal government. Eight years later, Oscar DePriest would be seated

in Congress from Illinois’ First Congressional District. Illinois would perennially continue to seat Black members of Congress from 1928 up to the present time. It would also elect two out of the three Blacks elected to the U.S. Senate since Reconstruction. It is interesting that President Abraham Lincoln hailed from Illinois. He issued his Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 to save the Union and not to free enslaved Africans. He was compelled to publicly acknowledge the military prowess of the Black soldiers who eventually saved the Union. Their heroism prompted the ratification of the Civil War Amendments. Thus, Black soldiers won the right to vote on the battlefield. This heroism set a timetable for enfranchising all historically oppressed groups. Wars would be the measuring stick for dispensing voting rights. Sen. Barack Obama also hails from Illinois. He launched his presidential campaign in Springfield, Illinois, the home of President Abraham Lincoln, who was credited with being an agent of change. His views on taxes and banking, and not his views on slavery, prompted his assassination. If President Lincoln had been left to his own devices, Blacks would have been shipped back to Africa.

Although President Lincoln is acknowledged as changing the fabric of the American economy, he had less political experience than Sen. Obama. President Lincoln only served four years in the U.S. House of Representatives. By 2009, Sen. Obama will have served four years in the U.S. Senate. Issues of immigration, the American economy and Iraq are all wrapped up in this nation’s foreign policy. Neither Sen. Obama, Sen. Clinton nor Sen. McCain has any executive experience in foreign policy. The executive branch of the federal government is far different than the legislative branch. The successful presidential candidate will be starting from scratch. Within the past 56 years, only Presidents Richard Nixon, Lyndon B. Johnson and George H.W. Bush enjoyed such executive experience before winning the presidential sweepstakes. Presidents Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt were this country’s greatest Commanders in Chief. Neither of them had any high level of experience in the executive branch of the federal government. Sen. Obama embodies the future and the future in this country is racial diversity. The future demographics of the United States are a microcosm of the world. If the world’s population

could vote in this year’s presidential election in the United States, Sen. Obama would win hands down. This country can ill-afford to ignore the world’s straw poll. The world has changed dramatically since 1945, and the United States must follow suit. Sixty years ago, it would have been unthinkable for the United States to become heavily indebted to China. Four years ago, it would have been unthinkable for Michelle Obama to see herself as the nation’s next First Lady. President Lincoln needed the Black soldier to save the Union in 1863, and America needs a Black executive like Sen. Obama to save itself in 2009. The United States has a credibility problem worldwide and it will take a person from the least respected group in American to repair its image after Bush 43. Historically opposed groups will soon be the majority in the United States. Sen. Obama’s presidential bid is also a pre-emptive strike designed to undermine a rainbow coalition emerging as a third party and either unseating the white establishment in the United States or exercising considerable political leverage. With President Obama in the White House, there is no need for a Ralph Nader or a Rainbow Party. Compiled by Andre ’ Scott