I believe the vote was extended to African Americans via the 15th amendment to the constitution, ratified in 1870.

t edit x-post with Hil. And what Nutty said.

moonlit, yes, it is here

Universal male suffrage was 15th Amendment, 1870, but...

Women, formally by the 19th Amendment in August 18, 1920. Some states had it earlier.

All of the above is why the whole world should fit between Boston and New York. If you can't get to it in 4 hours and/or on an interconnected set of train and public transity systems, why bother??

I like how you think.

Australian Aboriginals didn't get the vote until 1967.

All of the above is why the whole world should fit between Boston and New York. If you can't get to it in 4 hours and/or on an interconnected set of train and public transity systems, why bother??

That's the other thing with the size of the U.S. I cannot get my head around getting between New York and DC-- the northeast and the virtual south, so historically divided-- in less than six hours. LA is the closest city to Phoenix and you still have to drive for six hours! There are almost no interstate trips between metropolises west of the Midwest that are shorter than that. There should be six hours between cities! You shouldn't be able to look out your office and see New Jersey!

All of the above is why the whole world should fit between Boston and New York. If you can't get to it in 4 hours and/or on an interconnected set of train and public transity systems, why bother??

It is kind of neat to go down into the metro in DC and emerge a few hours later in New York.

However, Jim Crow laws managed to take away voting rights from most blacks in the South until the early sixties. That is also when the legal apartheid system known as "Jim Crow" finally ended. Until the early sixties there were states where Black peple could not vote, could not enter most shops or resteraunts, had to ride different classes of accomoadation on public transport, had to go miles out of their way compared to whites to find a restromm they could use. Could be jailed for marrying or dating whites (not to mention the real dangers of execution in public lynchings-, though I believe that mostly ended in the fifties). I do know that until Truman, the armed forces of the U.S. were segregated, and black soldiers assigned to worse assignments. Legal equality between blacks and whites in the U.S. is a comparatively recent phenomena. I bring this up here, because I knew several French people in the eighties whom this came as a surprise to, so the thought occurs to me that there might be UnAmericans posting who don't know it. The U.S. South in the 50s (and before of course) was very much like Apartheid South Africa.

There's a fraternity (KA) on my campus which is the Southern fraternity. Honorary president is Jefferson Davis. Each year, their big party is the KA Ball, when the symbolically "secede" from the campus, and all the guys dress in Confederate uniforms and their girlfriends get Scarlet O'Hara dresses. A few years ago, they got in some trouble with the university because they paid some black kids a few dollars to pretend to pick cotton on the lawn of their house. The compromise reached after that was that they could continue to have the ball (the university didn't want to alienate alumni), but they're not allowed on campus in their uniforms. (They don't obey this at all.)

Without the Official Secret Police. (They were unofficial, although, during their day jobs, some of them were police.) So, yeah.

You shouldn't be able to look out your office and see New Jersey!

Well, the Northeast Corridor is so named for a reason. And I like the idea that, until Virginia, you can't come across any territory that isn't incorporated into one town or another. The big empty spaces in the west freak me out.

Never more than 5 miles from a Dunkin Donuts, yo.

Never more than 5 miles from a taquería, yo.