(ThyBlackMan.com) I can remember it like it was yesterday as my family and I walked into the funeral home chapel to the haunting sound of Sam Cookes A change gone come. This song had been chosen by his grandchildren a tribute befitting my seventy-five year old Father who had seen the world thru many different views. He had survived Jim Crow laws, segregation, the assignations of those who were trying to move the black race forward and two wars.
The year was 2007 who knew the following year history would be made as the first black man was appointed President of the United States! As the election results were revealed I could only cry and think to myself that change had come! And how proud he and those before him would have been to see this.
On February 3, 1870. The 15th Amendment to the Constitution would grant African American men the right to vote by declaring that the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United 
States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.
This write of promise would not be fully recognized for nearly a century. It would take the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 before the majority of African Americans in the South were allowed to register to vote.
During this time southern trees would bare strange fruits. Is thier dying to be in vain? It is important that we get out and go to the polls to vote, we have a voice and must exercise it in order for it to be heard. I am not here to tell you how you should vote, but only to tell you, you must vote! It is your right and many have given their lives so that you could have to right to do so.
As the years go by it is evident that what so many stood for and died for has been forgotten or not etched in the minds and hearts of our younger generation. The suffering of our people has been long and unjust. Our legacy is vast. Let us not forget that Martin marched so that Obama could run!
No matter whom you vote for, please vote.
Staff Writer; Camilla Denise Barton
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