The January/February edition of Smithsonian Magazine has a fascinating article about Joseph Hayne Rainey (“Meet Joseph Rainey, the first Black congressman,” Jan. 6). Rainey was the first African American to be seated in the United States House of Representatives and the first member of Congress born into enslavement.
Rainey was an architect of a crucial period in U.S. history, the era after the Civil War known as Reconstruction. He envisioned all Americans being free from discrimination from private business and government. Various laws which established protections for all Americans against discrimination were passed and enacted into law when he was in office.
The Smithsonian article discusses how Rainey’s visions were thwarted when white supremacists used violence and illegal tactics to force him and his colleagues out of office. Armed vigilante groups marauded throughout the South, openly threatening voters and even carrying out political assassinations.
These vigilantes, who identified themselves as representing “the white man’s party,” committed wide-scale voter fraud and voter suppression. These vigilantes were typically never identified or prosecuted for the assassinations, voter intimidation or voter fraud.
Unfortunately, these tactics against minorities continued into the 20th century with Jim Crow laws, in which Blacks in the South were treated as second-class citizens. These Jim Crow laws did not only affect minorities here in the United States. They were also sometimes used in establishing discriminatory laws by other countries. For example, award-winning commentator Bill Moyers wrote an article entitled “How the Nazis used Jim Crow Laws as the model for their race laws” (Oct. 13, 2017, BillMoyers.com). According to the article, American law was a model for everybody in the early 20th century who was interested in creating a race-based order or race state.
We just voted out a president who tried to keep power after losing the election by a significant margin by using white supremacist groups like the Proud Boys and QAnon to attack our nation’s capital. Instead of trying to further secure and protect voting rights, we see Republican legislatures across the country trying to enact voting laws which suppress voting rights. According to a Jan. 28 article in the Guardian, Republicans are considering more than 100 bills to restrict voting rights.
These attempted voting restrictions come on the heels of an election which federal and state officials called “the most secure in US history.” When will all Americans learn that the United States should be a beacon for democracy, not an example of how to undermine democracy?
Kerry Meagher is a senior underwriting attorney for a national title insurance company and has been a Savage resident since 1987. He’s volunteered to advise voters on their election rights for past 18 years.
