PHOTO: Roy Lewis

Thousands of members of the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. took to the streets of Washington, D.C. on Sunday commemorating the 100^th anniversary of the 1913 Women’s Suffrage March in which the Delta’s 22 founders participated. Delta Sigma Theta is now the single largest predominantlyAfrican-American women's organization in the country.

Led by a banner with the theme, “Tracing the Footsteps of Our Founders,” the women in red gathered on the west front of the Capitol and braved cold temperatures marching the 3.1 miles past the White House on Pennsylvania Avenue and concluding on the grounds of the Washington Monument.

Some honored the 22 founders by dressing in the fashions of 1913. The 1913 march sought to draw public attention and support for the suffragists’cause seven years before the passage of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote. 

By Julianne Malveaux

Shelby County, Alabama is suing the Justice Department because they think that Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (and its reauthorization in 1982 and 2006) is unfair.  The facts – the small city of Calera, Alabama, redistricted its boundaries in a way that the sole African American councilman lost his seat.  Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act forced a new election with different boundaries, and Ernest Montgomery regained his seat.  Shelby County (which includes parts of Birmingham) objects to the provision of the Voting Rights Act that requires that areas with histories of past discrimination. This would include many southern states, as well as areas, like Alaska, that have historical discrimination against Native people, and places like Texas and parts of California, that have historic discrimination against Latinos.  They say that it’s all equal now and there is no need to monitor them.

Not surprisingly, conservatives and the Attorney Generals of several affective states have filed amicus briefs to support Shelby County.  These include the states of Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, South Carolina, South Dakota, and Texas.  Additionally the usual suspects like the Conservative Legal Defense Fund, the Cato Institute, the Pacific Legal Foundation and the Southeast Legal Foundation (among others) have lined up to support Shelby.  It is not surprising that the conservative Project 21, nominally an African American organization, has lined up to support Shelby.  It is more surprising that the National Black Chamber of Commerce has filed an amicus brief.  I’d be most interested in leaning where the Black Chamber polled its membership before filing this brief.  If I were a member, I’d have to cancel my membership. If my dues were used to support that nonsense, I’d be repelled.  I guess it just goes to show that “everybody brown ain’t down”, and to raise questions about this organization.

Many suggest that Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act means there is no need for Section 5.  While Section 2 allows lawsuits, it forces plaintiffs to show that changes in voting provisions are motivated by “invidious practices”.  Section 5 says that those who are know to have engaged in such practices are required to have the Department of Justice review them.

If our nation had never chosen to implement the 14^th and 15^th Amendments to the Constitution, there would have been no need for the Voting Rights Act.  The Fourteenth Amendment actually states that state population decides the number of Congressional representatives, but if enough people are denied the right to vote, Congressional representation should be reduced.  This provision has never been enforced, even when the whole black population in some southern states could not vote.

The Fifteenth Amendment prohibits denying the right to vote based on race, color, and previous condition of servitude, and authorized Congress to enforce this amendment with the appropriate action and legislation.  Until 1876, federal troops enforced the right that African Americans had to vote, spurring an unprecedented level of African American civic participation.  Because the African American population (and number of voters) was greater than the number of whites in Mississippi, Louisiana and South Carolina, African Americans were elected as lieutenant governors, secretaries of state and treasurers (not to mention Governor Pinchback of Mississippi, who served a scant two months and was denied seats he was elected to in the Senate and in Congress).  Additionally 16 African Americans served in Congress – 2 in the Senate and 14 in the House of Representatives.  No wonder some were eager to nullify the Fifteenth Amendment.  Federal troops were withdrawn from southern states in 1877; in 2013, 136 years later, southern states are asking that voting protection be withdrawn from their states.

Why? Just as the election of 16 African American legislators alarmed the South, so has the election and reelection of President Barack Obama alarmed our nation.  His election reminds us all of the power of the vote, and emboldens those who would limit it.  That’s why several states have passed voter ID legislation requiring people to have an official government ID in order to vote.  That’s why a 102 year old woman waited more than 6 hours to vote.  That’s why some states have consolidated voting places, making people travel further and wait longer to vote.  We don’t have poll taxes anymore (although forcing people to travel more than an hour and wait more than an hour is an implicit poll tax), nor do voters have to take a fitness test, so the means of voter suppression have been both more and less subtle.  It reminds us of why we had the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, and in our nation’s failure to implement, the Voting Rights Act.

Julianne Malveaux is a DC based economist and author.

By Dr. E. Faye Williams, Esq.

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Women and Black people have offered so much to our nation that we deserve to be honored or at least remembered in a special way every month. We should not be happy with the hand we’re dealt without question or efforts to change what is. Black people have been given February to celebrate what we’ve done historically. That’s a lot in spite of all the obstruction we’ve faced along the way. Women have been given March to celebrate what we do. We’ve faced obstruction, too. Since I fit into both categories, I want to talk about how I feel about our efforts not being fairly recognized.

When I speak to groups for Black History Month, the audiences are mostly Black. When I speak for Women’s History Month, the audiences are mostly women. Some may say they’ve had a different experience, but I’m not speaking for them.

As we move from Black History into Women’s History Month, I want to raise a few questions that have been on my mind for a long time. I know that Black people and women do many things to make our communities better. Yet, I read a lot of newspapers and magazines. I watch a fair amount of news talk shows, television commentary and specials. Like many, I try to find myself there. When I say “myself”, I don’t mean me personally. I mean people like me—especially other Black women. I look at all the work done by those who’re female and/or Black such as Dr. Lezli Baskerville at NAFEO, Melanie Campbell at the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation, Dr. Dara Richardson-Heron at the YWCA, Dr. Avis Jones-DeWeever at the National Council of Negro Women, Barbara Arnwine at the Lawyers’Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and many others. I know them and others like them, but I don’t see their faces on the news often enough to show the important work they do.

When most Progressive candidates win elections, the largest percent of their votes come from Black people—but rarely do we see an acknowledgment of that. I’m not saying nobody does it, but we certainly don’t get the kind of attention for our support that others do.

Walk down the halls of the U.S. Congress, and you don’t see memorials to many women or Black people. Yes, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is there after a hard fought campaign. It wasn’t until 2009, that the National Congress of Black Women finally got Sojourner Truth’s memorial in the Capitol—making her the first Black woman to have a memorial in Emancipation Hall of the Capitol. Shortly thereafter, a portrait of Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm appeared in one of the Capitol hallways. Now Rosa Parks has become the first Black woman to have a statue in the Capitol as part of its National Statuary Hall Collection.

It’s great to see them recognized, but it would be even greater to see the accomplishments of more Black women and men acknowledged on a regular basis. We now see a few Black men and women hosting television programs, but you’d need a magnifying glass to see even them discussing the great things Black men and women do. Whether we’re left out is because we’re Black or because we’re women is worrisome. Media exposure of what we do to make a difference in communities across the country would help us to do even more. In the meantime, let us honor each other every day for the work we do—not just during the special months set aside for us as Black people or as women. It would also be good to thank the Black press and media for the job they do in covering our events and our accomplishments.