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Voter Suppression a Lasting Legacy of the Transatlantic Slave Trade

NNPA NEWSWIRE — “In Federalist No. 54, James Madison wrote about the chief concern of the representation of slaves concerning taxation and representation,” said Maxim Thorne, an attorney and managing director of The Andrew Goodman Foundation. “This federalist paper states that slaves are property as well as people, therefore requiring some, but not full, representation. Ultimately a decision was made to count every three out of five slaves through the creation of the Three-Fifths Compromise,” he said.

Published

6 years ago

March 15, 2019

Oakland Post

(Read the entire series: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11)

By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Correspondent
@StacyBrownMedia

“Presidential elections and the voter experience have long been fraught for black people. From racist poll taxes to made-up literacy tests to the egregious rollback of voting rights over the past 50 years, American democracy has, at times, felt like a weird and failed social experiment.” — Patrisse Cullors

“Every American citizen must have an equal right to vote. There is no reason which can excuse the denial of that right. There is no duty which weighs more heavily on us than the duty we have to ensure that right. … It is wrong—deadly wrong—to deny any of your fellow Americans the right to vote in this country. There is no issue of states’ rights or national rights. There is only the struggle for human rights.” — President Lyndon B. Johnson, from ‘The Voting Rights Act Address’

New U.S. Census data projects that in in 2045 the United States will be “minority white,” and with several factors considered, The Progressive succinctly noted the implications: In thirty years, more potential voters will be non-white.

Donald Trump continues to prime audiences with his racial fear-mongering and rhetoric of white nationalism and, nationwide, Republicans have gone out of their way to prevent non-white people from voting, as also noted in The Progressive.

According to the Pew Research Center fewer than 3 percent of black people are registered as Republican and fewer than 15 percent of Latinos register Republican.

Voter suppression, it’s totally clear, is about racial politics more than party politics.

It’s also clear that voter suppression is one of the many lingering and lasting effects of the 500-year-old Transatlantic Slave Trade.

“The whole idea of the slave trade was the disenfranchisement of our human rights,” the Rev. Al Sharpton said in an interview with NNPA Newswire at the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s recent Rainbow Push Coalition Wall Street Project.

“Voter suppression is the disenfranchisement of our human and civil rights and that’s why our struggle must have continuity because we’re still fighting for justice and equality,” Sharpton said.

Jackson agreed.

“Clearly, disenfranchisement has been the theme from the time they brought our people over here on slave ships from Africa,” Jackson said.

“What you see with voter suppression and disenfranchisement is a product of the slave trade for sure,” he said.

During the 2018 midterm elections, voter participation was more than 10 percentage points higher than it was in the 2014 midterm elections, demonstrating Americans’ demand for change and increased enthusiasm for exercising their civic duty to vote.

That said, nearly 120 million eligible Americans did not participate in the November elections, according to a report from the Center for American Progress.

The report noted that widespread voter suppression – particularly against historically marginalized groups – is a reoccurring problem in the United States.

Each election cycle, untold numbers of eligible Americans are prevented from voting due to barriers in the voter registration process, restrictions on casting ballots, and discriminatory and partisan-rigged district maps.

The report described some of the voter suppression measures and other Election Day problems that potentially kept millions of eligible Americans from participating in the 2018 midterm elections.

Those included:

Voter registration problems
Voter purges
Strict voter ID and ballot requirements
Voter confusion
Voter intimidation and harassment
Poll closures and long lines
Malfunctioning voting equipment
Disenfranchisement of justice-involved individuals
Gerrymandering

Many, like Sharpton and Jackson, said the actions of voter suppression and disenfranchisement are remnants of the transatlantic slave trade.

“Africans came here with nothing and with no rights to anything, not even their children. They had to learn an entirely new language,” said Janice Robinson-Celeste, a former nanny, early childhood specialist and one-time daycare owner who publishes SuccessfulBlackParenting.com.

“Today, too many red states have manipulated the system by redistricting voting areas, suppressing votes, using malfunctioning machines which create long lines and deter people, to requiring identification to vote,” Robinson-Celeste said.

“We owe it to our ancestors — from slavery to the Civil Rights era — to vote in every election. The GOP wants to strip our rights away which is reminiscent of what the slave traders did when our people were kidnapped from Africa and at the least to the pre-civil rights movement. We have to fight for our rights, or we will gradually lose them in a slow boil,” she said.

Finally, Robinson-Celeste added:

“It doesn’t matter what candidate you like or don’t like at this point. It matters which will do the best for your children, for you and your family. That’s the one you vote for. The idea is to keep the worst one out of office.”

“From the birthing pains of American Democracy came the racist deformity that remains a part of us today,” said Maxim Thorne, an attorney and managing director of The Andrew Goodman Foundation, which supports youth leadership development, voting accessibility, and social justice initiatives on campuses across the country with mini-grants to select institutions of higher learning and other financial assistance to students.

“This is despite centuries of legal and legislative efforts to repair that core infection of the three-fifths clause that is embedded in the U.S. Constitution,” Thorne said.

In Federalist No. 54, James Madison wrote about the chief concern of the representation of slaves concerning taxation and representation, Thorne said.

“This federalist paper states that slaves are property as well as people, therefore requiring some, but not full, representation. Ultimately a decision was made to count every three out of five slaves through the creation of the Three-Fifths Compromise,” he said.

What’s more, white people, the economic and cultural beneficiaries of the plantocracy, have for centuries tried to maintain that same power structure, Thorne said.

“For many, especially in the American South, this notion has become a sought-after norm. Embedded deep in our racist culture, white citizens continue to undermine the African-American vote and that of other marginalized racial groups today,” he said.

All of that could be seen in the 2018 Midterm Election through the rebirth and escalation of voter suppression tactics throughout the country, Thorne further contends.

He said since 2013 when the United States Supreme Court struck down key provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, many attempts have been made to recreate Jim Crow-era policies meant to disenfranchise minority voters.

“That’s why we see a resurgence of voter ID laws, purging of voter rolls, as well as threats and intimidation,” Thorne said.

“This paradigm was never more glaring than in the 2018 Georgia Gubernatorial Race. Stacey Abrams, the first Black woman to be nominated for governor in the United States, had been surfacing as a viable candidate for the position since 2013,” he said.

Thorne continued:

“Like Obama, she electrified the African-American and progressive communities. It became clear however that the voting structure was rigged against her.

“The Georgia Secretary of State, Briana Kemp, who oversaw voting in the state, refused to step down from his position while running as her opponent.

“Mr. Kemp attempted to close polling stations in majority Black precincts. Malfunctioning voting machines in largely Black counties affected voting. Voters complained to the Georgia NAACP that the voting machines registered a vote for Kemp even when they selected Abrams.

“Fifty-three thousand voter registration applications were never processed, from predominantly Black districts, greater than the margin by which Stacey Abrams lost the election. Ultimately, Abrams conceded in a race that was sullied by suppression.”

Those nefarious and racist voter suppression activities fulfill the spirit of the three-fifths clause, Thorne said.

“The nation appears to have moved on from the Georgia election with many of the structural problems remaining intact and I expect there will be loud rumblings of unfairness in 2020 again but vested interests are only thinking in partisan patterns, not about real inclusive democracy,” he said.

“This unquestioned acceptance of the denial of African-American voting rights is the current festering of the racist seed of our founding.”

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#NNPA BlackPress

Recently Approved Budget Plan Favors Wealthy, Slashes Aid to Low-Income Americans

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — The most significant benefits would flow to the highest earners while millions of low-income families face cuts

Published

6 days ago

March 21, 2025

Stacy M. Brown

By Stacy M. Brown

BlackPressUSA.com Senior National Correspondent

The new budget framework approved by Congress may result in sweeping changes to the federal safety net and tax code. The most significant benefits would flow to the highest earners while millions of low-income families face cuts. A new analysis from Yale University’s Budget Lab shows the proposals in the House’s Fiscal Year 2025 Budget Resolution would lead to a drop in after-tax-and-transfer income for the poorest households while significantly boosting revenue for the wealthiest Americans. Last month, Congress passed its Concurrent Budget Resolution for Fiscal Year 2025 (H. Con. Res. 14), setting revenue and spending targets for the next decade. The resolution outlines $1.5 trillion in gross spending cuts and $4.5 trillion in tax reductions between FY2025 and FY2034, along with $500 billion in unspecified deficit reduction.

Congressional Committees have now been instructed to identify policy changes that align with these goals. Three of the most impactful committees—Agriculture, Energy and Commerce, and Ways and Means—have been tasked with proposing major changes. The Agriculture Committee is charged with finding $230 billion in savings, likely through changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), also known as food stamps. Energy and Commerce must deliver $880 billion in savings, likely through Medicaid reductions. Meanwhile, the Ways and Means Committee must craft tax changes totaling no more than $4.5 trillion in new deficits, most likely through extending provisions of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Although the resolution does not specify precise changes, reports suggest lawmakers are eyeing steep cuts to SNAP and Medicaid benefits while seeking to make permanent tax provisions that primarily benefit high-income individuals and corporations.

To examine the potential real-world impact, Yale’s Budget Lab modeled four policy changes that align with the resolution’s goals:

A 30 percent across-the-board cut in SNAP funding.
A 15 percent cut in Medicaid funding.
Permanent extension of the individual and estate tax cuts from the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
Permanent extension of business tax provisions including 100% bonus depreciation, expense of R&D, and relaxed limits on interest deductions.

Yale researchers determined that the combined effect of these policies would reduce the after-tax-and-transfer income of the bottom 20 percent of earners by 5 percent in the calendar year 2026. Households in the middle would see a modest 0.6 percent gain. However, the top five percent of earners would experience a 3 percent increase in their after-tax-and-transfer income.

Moreover, the analysis concluded that more than 100 percent of the net fiscal benefit from these changes would go to households in the top 20 percent of the income distribution. This happens because lower-income groups would lose more in government benefits than they would gain from any tax cuts. At the same time, high-income households would enjoy significant tax reductions with little or no loss in benefits.

“These results indicate a shift in resources away from low-income tax units toward those with higher incomes,” the Budget Lab report states. “In particular, making the TCJA provisions permanent for high earners while reducing spending on SNAP and Medicaid leads to a regressive overall effect.” The report notes that policymakers have floated a range of options to reduce SNAP and Medicaid outlays, such as lowering per-beneficiary benefits or tightening eligibility rules. While the Budget Lab did not assess each proposal individually, the modeling assumes legislation consistent with the resolution’s instructions. “The burden of deficit reduction would fall largely on those least able to bear it,” the report concluded.

Stacy M. Brown

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#NNPA BlackPress

A Threat to Pre-emptive Pardons

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — it was a possibility that the preemptive pardons would not happen because of the complicated nature of that never-before-enacted process.

Published

6 days ago

March 21, 2025

Oakland Post

By April Ryan

President Trump is working to undo the traditional presidential pardon powers by questioning the Biden administration’s pre-emptive pardons issued just days before January 20, 2025. President Trump is seeking retribution against the January 6th House Select Committee. The Trump Justice Department has been tasked to find loopholes to overturn the pardons that could lead to legal battles for the Republican and Democratic nine-member committee. Legal scholars and those closely familiar with the pardon process worked with the Biden administration to ensure the preemptive pardons would stand against any retaliatory knocks from the incoming Trump administration. A source close to the Biden administration’s pardons said, in January 2025, “I think pardons are all valid. The power is unreviewable by the courts.”

However, today that same source had a different statement on the nuances of the new Trump pardon attack. That attack places questions about Biden’s use of an autopen for the pardons. The Trump argument is that Biden did not know who was pardoned as he did not sign the documents. Instead, the pardons were allegedly signed by an autopen. The same source close to the pardon issue said this week, “unless he [Trump] can prove Biden didn’t know what was being done in his name. All of this is in uncharted territory. “ Meanwhile, an autopen is used to make automatic or remote signatures. It has been used for decades by public figures and celebrities.

Months before the Biden pardon announcement, those in the Biden White House Counsel’s Office, staff, and the Justice Department were conferring tirelessly around the clock on who to pardon and how. The concern for the preemptive pardons was how to make them irrevocable in an unprecedented process. At one point in the lead-up to the preemptive pardon releases, it was a possibility that the preemptive pardons would not happen because of the complicated nature of that never-before-enacted process. President Trump began the threat of an investigation for the January 6th Select Committee during the Hill proceedings. Trump has threatened members with investigation or jail.

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Reaction to The Education EO

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — Meanwhile, the new Education EO jeopardizes funding for students seeking a higher education. Duncan states, PellGrants are in jeopardy after servicing “6.5 million people” giving them a chance to go to college.

Published

6 days ago

March 21, 2025

Oakland Post

By April Ryan

There are plenty of negative reactions to President Donald Trump’s latest Executive Order abolishing the Department of Education. As Democrats call yesterday’s action performative, it would take an act of Congress for the Education Department to close permanently. “This blatantly unconstitutional executive order is just another piece of evidence that Trump has absolutely no respect for the Constitution,” said Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) who is the ranking member on the House Financial Services Committee. “By dismantling ED, President Trump is implementing his own philosophy on education, which can be summed up in his own words, ‘I love the poorly educated.’ I am adamantly opposed to this reckless action, said Rep. Bobby Scott who is the most senior Democrat on the House Education and Workforce Committee.

Morgan State University President Dr. David Wilson chimed in saying “I’m deeply concerned about efforts to shift federal oversight in education back to the states, particularly regarding equity, justice, and fairness. History has shown us what happens when states are left unchecked—Black and poor children are too often denied access to the high-quality education they deserve. In 1979 then President Jimmy Carter signed a law creating the Department of Education. Arne Duncan, former Obama Education Secretary, reminds us that both Democratic and Republican presidents have kept education a non-political issue until now. However, Duncan stressed Republican presidents have contributed greatly to moving education forward in this country.

During a CNN interview this week Duncan said during the Civil War President Abraham “Lincoln created the land grant system” for colleges like Tennessee State University. “President Ford brought in IDEA.” And “Nixon signed Pell Grants into law.” In 2001, the No Child Left Behind Act was signed into law by President George W. Bush which increased federal oversight of schools through standardized testing. Meanwhile, the new Education EO jeopardizes funding for students seeking higher education. Duncan states, PellGrants are in jeopardy after servicing “6.5 million people” giving them a chance to go to college. Wilson details, “that 40 percent of all college students rely on Pell Grants and student loans.”

Rep. Alma Adams (D-NC) says this Trump action “impacts students pursuing higher education and threatens 26 million students across the country, taking billions away from their educational futures. Meanwhile, During the president’s speech in the East Room of the White House Thursday, Trump criticized Baltimore City, and its math test scores with critical words. Governor West Moore, who is opposed to the EO action, said about dismantling the Department of Education, “Leadership means lifting people up, not punching them down.”