Disenfranchisement's threat to democracy: there is a real danger to the Republic when large segments of the population never make it to the polls while politicians "gerrymand" the boundaries for those who do vote

THE AMERICAN SYSTEM, so heralded since the signing of the Declaration of Independence, has disenfranchised women, marginalized and massacred Native Americans, and selectively persecuted various ethnic and minority groups since its inception some 225 years ago. Front and center, of course, is the issue of slavery. To live in a land for centuries under forced labor without a payday or the right to vote, resigned to endure murder and rape without any avenue of retribution, is an incalculable horror.

As the presidential campaign heats up and Election Day approaches, it is interesting (and tragic) to note that one of the greatest political beneficiaries of slavery was Thomas Jefferson. He defeated John Adams in a national election by a mere eight electoral votes, but at least 12 of his tallies were based on the Constitution's "Three-Fifths Clause," permitting slaves to be counted as three-fifths of a person. Consequently, slaves owned by southern masters increased the voting strength of the slave owners. Jefferson even was dubbed the "Negro President" by some of his contemporaries.

What an astounding irony of history. Slaves who could not vote but could be counted by their masters helped secure the election of the nation's third president.

When author W.E.B. DuBois speaks of the "land of the thief and the home of the slave," he is emphasizing a shameful and powerful historical phenomenon. Here we have one of the diabolical examples in the great struggle of truth with falsehood and good with evil. Indeed, injustice can become "legal" and thrive as public and social policy.

The cited constitutional provision, with its resultant public and social policy, remained intact until America's bloodiest war was fought over the issue of slavery. When the pro-slavery forces lost the Civil War, African-Americans finally gained the franchise they sought, but it required three amendments and subsequent Civil Rights legislation to achieve.

Not only were the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments required, but two Civil Rights bills (passed in 1866 and 1875, respectively) and the active presence of Federal troops were necessary to secure, protect, and enforce the right to vote. When this protection was withdrawn in the 1877 Compromise, the terror of the Ku Klux Klan became a way of life for almost 100 years.

Certainly, the right of blacks to vote did not live long before it was compromised, abridged, and denied by poll taxes, literacy tests, the Grandfather Clause, the KKK, mob violence, and decades of lynchings.

This brutal disenfranchisement then would be codified with the "Separate but Equal" doctrine of Plessy v. Ferguson. This unforgivable breach of justice finally was declared unconstitutional in 1954's landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision. Yet, it would be another decade to achieve Civil Rights and Voting Rights legislation.

The Civil Rights and Voting Rights bills were transformational in content and intent. But they did not come without struggle, sacrifice, and, as always when it comes to Black America, death. It is well documented that the almost 10,000 African-Americans elected to office since the Selma to Montgomery March have changed the political landscape of our nation. Martin Luther King, Jr., reminded the nation at that time that "The Civil Rights Act gave Negroes some part of their rightful dignity, but without the vote. It is dignity without strength."

Having shared the Selma to Montgomery March, I can still see, 39 years later, the faces and hear the voices of a generation of liberators as we marched, chanted, and spoke out. sharing dangers, toils, and snares along the way. I was on a charter flight from Montgomery to Birmingham, Atlanta, and Louisville--a plane made available to Dr. King by Purdue University. I remember a reporter getting off in Atlanta and returning with the sad news of the murder of activist Viola Gregg Liuzzo. Jimmie Lee Jackson and Rev. James Rebb had been killed a few days earlier. These deaths were suffered to secure the right to vote.

The Voting Rights Bill finally was signed into law by Pres. Lyndon B. Johnson on Aug. 6, 1965. However, it has amendments that come up for periodic renewal and/or extension. This means that the voting right guarantees for millions are contingent upon the mood of Congress and the mind of the president. It is true. Four years into the 21st century, certain amendments to the Voting Rights Bill remain subject to expiration. These amendments are scheduled for renewal in 2007. This could be characterized as temporary enfranchisement. In other words, justice on probation or contingent citizenship protection.

The right to vote is guaranteed by the Constitution. The 15th Amendment likely will not be repealed. The Voting Rights Act protects, defends, and enforces constitutional guarantees. Otherwise, we are left to the whims and practices of the states to enforce or deny these guarantees. From 1877-1965, the southern states violently denied these rights.