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Voting Rights: The First Social Movement

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The first social movement that I will be analyzing is voting rights. Voting rights have changed a lot throughout history and have not always been clear in the constitution. I have decided to discuss this movement because I have become much more interested in it voting rights since I am able to vote now. Voting in the United States was once only for the white men who owned property and so many citizens did not have this right. Voting did not become a reality for African Americans in the South until the twenty-fourth amendment was passed in 1964 and the Voting Right Act in 1965. If we think about this, 1965 was not very long ago. There are many African Americans living today that did not have the right to vote when they were younger and I could only imagine the feelings of oppression that they experienced. Literacy tests and poll taxes made it very difficult for them to vote prior to this movement. When discussing voting rights, we must also discuss women and their voting history. Many women wanted a say in elections and began their suffrage in the 1840s. As more women had enter the workforce, they wanted have a say and they finally received …show more content…
I found it rather silly that they did not have the right to vote, but the land was first theirs. The new nation did not consider these individuals to have full rights because the did not pay taxes and were considered aliens. Segal states in chapter six, “it was not until after World War I that the right to vote was extended to them” (p. 150). They earned that right to vote because they received full civil rights. The textbook also discusses Mexican immigration and Latino voting. The 1848 Treaty of Hidalgo helped Mexicans become citizens, but they did not have the right to vote. They were not considered full citizens though because, like the Native Americans, they did not pay taxes. The Mexicans and Latinos received their right to

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