The Utica/Oneida County Branch NAACP will be kicking off Black History Month 2020 with its annual program at the History Center. The program features guest speakers, including County Legislator Evon Ervin and Councilman Delvin Moody, poetry recitals, dance presentations, music, and more. This local celebration follows the 2020 national theme, African Americans and the Vote, which addresses the ongoing struggle on the part of both black men and black women for the right to vote. This theme coincides with two significant anniversaries in American history: the centennial of the Nineteenth Amendment and the culmination of the women’s suffrage movement, and the sesquicentennial of the Fifteenth Amendment and the right of black men to the ballot after the Civil War. Please see below for more information.
This program takes place in the History Center’s main gallery on Saturday, February 1, 2020, starting at 1:00 PM. The annual event is free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be served. For additional information please call 315-796-2512.
The Utica/Oneida County Branch NAACP is a Civil Rights advocacy organization. The purpose of the Utica/Oneida County branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People shall be to improve the political, educational, social and economic status of minority groups; to eliminate racial prejudice; to keep the public aware of the adverse effects of racial discrimination; and to take lawful action to secure its elimination, consistent with the efforts of the national organization and in conformity with the articles of Incorporation of the Association, its Constitution and By-Laws, and as directed by the National Board of Directors
The Oneida County History Center is a private 501(c) (3) not-for-profit educational institution and is dedicated to preserving history and promoting the culture of the Greater Mohawk Valley. Admission to this program is free for the general public; donations are encouraged. Please contact the center at 315-735-3642 or visit the OCHC website (www.oneidacountyhistory.org) or our Facebook page for additional information.
ASALH Announces 2020 Black History Theme: African Americans and The Vote
The year 2020 marks the centennial of the Nineteenth Amendment and the culmination of the women’s suffrage movement. The year 2020 also marks the sesquicentennial of the Fifteenth Amendment (1870) and the right of black men to the ballot after the Civil War. The theme speaks, therefore, to the ongoing struggle on the part of both black men and black women for the right to vote. This theme has a rich and long history, which begins at the turn of the nineteenth century, i.e., in the era of the Early Republic, with the states’ passage of laws that democratized the vote for white men while disfranchising free black men. Thus, even before the Civil War, black men petitioned their legislatures and the US Congress, seeking to be recognized as voters. Tensions between abolitionists and women’s suffragists first surfaced in the aftermath of the Civil War, while black disfranchisement laws in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries undermined the guarantees in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments for the great majority of southern blacks until the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The important contribution of black suffragists occurred not only within the larger women’s movement, but within the larger black voting rights movement. Through voting-rights campaigns and legal suits from the turn of the twentieth century to the mid-1960s, African Americans made their voices heard as to the importance of the vote. Indeed the fight for black voting rights continues in the courts today. The theme of the vote should also include the rise of black elected and appointed officials at the local and national levels, campaigns for equal rights legislation, as well as the role of blacks in traditional and alternative political parties. (WWW.ASALH.ORG)
