March 26

The ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all.

John F. Kennedy, 35th President, 1961-1963- Remarks at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee at its 90th Anniversary Convocation, on May 18, 1963. Could you answer any of these questions? "Divide a vertical line in two equal parts by by bisecting it with a curved horizontal line that is only straight at its spot bisection of the vertical." (Question 28 of 30 from the State of Louisiana literacy test, for those who could not prove they had a fifth grade education.); or "Write every other word in this first line and print every third word in same line (original type smaller and first line ended at comma) but capitalize the fifth word that you write." (Question 29, Louisiana) When some Harvard students recently took the Louisiana test none of them passed. (http://www.addictinginfo.org/2014/11/12/harvard-students-take-1964-literacy-test-black-voters-had-to-pass-before-voting-they-all-failed/); or "Any power and rights not given to the U.S. or prohibited to the states by the U.S.Constitution are specified as belonging to whom? ______________________________" (Question 68 in pre 1965 Alabama voter literacy test) In Mississippi, passing the "literacy test required a person seeking to register to vote to read a section of the state constitution and explain it to the county clerk who processed voter registrations...It excluded almost all black men, because the clerk would select complicated technical passages for them to interpret."(http://www.crf-usa.org/brown-v-board-50th-anniversary/race-and-voting.html) Even if potential voters passed these tests, they could also be required to pay a poll tax to vote in various states. The question of who has the right to vote had long been a point of intense contention in the United States. Non landowners, immigrants and women had struggled to gain the right to vote. Now, in 1963, Black Americans and Native Americans were involved in a civil rights struggle to see their right to vote recognized. As Kennedy addresses the students, he uses humor and holds forth a positive direction in which he would have them pursue: "Nearly 100 years ago Prince Bismarck said that one-third of the students of German universities broke down from overwork, another third broke down from dissipation, and the other third ruled Germany. I do not know which third of the student body of Vanderbilt is here today, but I am confident we are talking to the future rulers of Tennessee and America in the spirit of this university." He continues, "If the pursuit of learning is not defended by the educated citizen, it will not be defended at all. For there will always be those who scoff at intellectuals, who cry out against research, who seek to limit our educational system." He spurs them on by appealing to them as educated citizens, "But the educated citizen knows how much more there is to know. He knows that "knowledge is power," more so today than ever before. He knows that only an educated and informed people will be a free people, that the ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all, and that if we can, as Jefferson put it, "enlighten the people generally... tyranny and the oppressions of mind and body will vanish, like evil spirits at the dawn of day." On August 27, 1962, Congress had passed the 24th amendment to Constitution which would forbid the charging of a poll tax as a provision to vote in a federal election. It would be ratified by the states on January 23, 1964. On August 6, 1965, the Voting Rights Act, which prohibited racial discrimination in voting, was signed into law by Lyndon Johnson, almost two years after Kennedy's death. As part of his concluding remarks, Kennedy closes with the following statement, "No one can deny the complexity of the problems involved in assuring to all of our citizens their full fights as Americans. But no one can gainsay the fact that the determination to secure these rights is in the highest traditions of American freedom." (http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=9218)