Sation 1: Chinese Exclusion Act

Chinese gold miners in California, at the head of the Auburn Ravine c. 1852.
(Credit: California State Library)
The Lim Family, American born and educated, The Chinese Exclusion Law made it difficult for the young
generation to find employment, forcing many families to seek opportunities back in China.

(Credit: Lim Tong Family Archives. Courtesy of the Wong Tong Family Archives.)
Certificate of identity issued to Yee Wee Thing certifying that he is the son of a US citizen ("paper son"?),
issued Nov. 21, 1916. This was necessary because of the Chinese Exclusion Act.
Station 2: Trial of Susan B. Anthony, 19th Amendment, Women’s Suffrage

Judge Hunt —(Ordering the defendant to stand up), “Has the prisoner anything to say why
sentence shall not be pronounced?”

Miss Anthony— Yes, your honor, I have many things to say; My natural rights, my civil rights,
my political rights, my judicial rights, are all alike ignored. and not only myself individually, but
all of my sex, are, by your honor's verdict, doomed to political subjection under this, so-called,
form of government.

Judge Hunt— The Court cannot listen to a rehearsal of arguments the prisoner's counsel has
already consumed three hours in presenting.

Miss Anthony— May it please your honor, I am not arguing the question, but simply stating the
reasons why sentence cannot, in justice, be pronounced against me. Your denial of my citizen's
right to vote, is the denial of my right of consent as one of the governed, the denial of my right
of representation as one of the taxed, the denial of my right to a trial by a jury of my peers as
an offender against law, therefore, the denial of my sacred rights to life, liberty, property and—

Judge Hunt— The Court cannot allow the prisoner to go on.

Miss Anthony— But your honor will not deny me this one and only poor privilege of protest
against this high-handed outrage upon my citizen's rights. May it please the Court to remember
that since the day of my arrest last November, this is the first time that either myself or any
person of my disfranchised class has been allowed a word of defense before judge or jury—

Judge Hunt— The prisoner must sit down—the Court cannot allow it.

Miss Anthony— All of my prosecutors, from the 8th ward corner grocery politician, who entered
the compliant, to the United States Marshal, Commissioner, District Attorney, District Judge,
your honor on the bench, not one is my peer, but each and all are my political sovereigns;
Precisely as no disfranchised person is entitled to sit upon a jury, and no woman is entitled to
the franchise, so, none but a regularly admitted lawyer is allowed to practice in the courts, and
no woman can gain admission to the bar—hence, jury, judge, counsel, must all be of the
superior class.

Judged Hunt— The Court must insist—the prisoner has been tried according to the established
forms of law.

Miss Anthony— Yes, your honor, but by forms of law all made by men, interpreted by men,
administered by men, in favor of men, and against women; It will not allow another word.

Miss Anthony —When I was brought before your honor for trial, I hoped for a broad and liberal
interpretation of the Constitution and its recent amendments, that should declare all United
States citizens under its protecting ægis—that should declare equality of rights the national
guarantee to all persons born or naturalized in the United States. All the stock in trade I possess
is a $10,000 debt, incurred by publishing my paper— The Revolution —four years ago, the sole
object of which was to educate all women to do precisely as I have done, rebel against your
manmade, unjust, unconstitutional forms of law, that tax, fine, imprison and hang women, while
they deny them the right of representation in the government;
Station 3:1965 Voting Rights Act

Andrew Young helped draft the Voting Rights Act of 1965 when he was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s executive
assistant. Of course, Mr. Young later became a US congressman, US ambassador to the United Nations and
mayor of Atlanta.

Thanks very much for being with us.

Ambassador ANDREW YOUNG: Very good.

SIMON: I'd like to read something first. It's the language to the 15th Amendment that was ratified in 1870. It
says Section 1, `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.' Section 2, `The Congress
shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.' It seems pretty complete. What was
missing?

Amb. YOUNG: The thing that was missing in that was enforcement. There had been a gentlemen's agreement
since Reconstruction that the federal government would not interfere with state governments. And in addition
to no interference, there was just a complete lawlessness in Alabama and Mississippi, some parts of Georgia. In
Georgia in 1963, we had three churches burned down simply because we were having meetings trying to
register people to vote. In Mississippi, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner and James Chaney were
killed because they were advocating voter registration. Jimmy Lee Jackson in Selma, Alabama, or Marion,
Alabama, returning veteran trying to get his grandfather--well, really not trying to even get him registered to
vote, protecting him from an assault by the Alabama state troopers, was killed. So the 15th Amendment was
being ignored, and you might say that we simply sought to get people to respect and enforce the 15th
Amendment.

SIMON: These were times--I remember stories that an African American would show up to vote and they
would be told, `Well, you have to recite the names of every state capital.'

Amb. YOUNG: Well, even more than that, it was worse than that. My younger brother in Louisiana was a
graduate of Howard University's dental school. I had been a lieutenant in the Navy, came back to Louisiana.
Took the state dental examination, passed it in two days. Though it was a four-day examination, he finished it
and was passed--went over to register to vote and they told him he flunked the literacy test. I mean, there was
just a systematic determination that black people would not be allowed to vote.

SIMON: We often when recollecting those days focus on the kind of malicious mischief of Southern states, but
the federal government wasn't always good about enforcing voting rights in some of the Northern states for
African-American voters either.

Amb. YOUNG: Well, the truth of it is that the federal government has been complicit in denying all Americans
equal access to the vote. And one of the things that I've been forced to realize, that after 40 years, is that maybe
we made a mistake. Maybe we fought for the wrong thing. It's embarrassing to me as an American citizen that
with all that we've done with the Voting Rights Act and Congress and a series of administrations that have
encouraged voting that we still vote less than 30 percent of the population, and Iraq votes 65 percent. And
looking at why we don't vote, we begin to raise the question: Well, why do we vote on a Tuesday? And largely
we vote on a Tuesday because that was a good day for farmers. Well, we're not farmers anymore. But we're
thinking that on the 40th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, we really ought to take a look at how our
democracy is working and whether it's a matter of racial discrimination or not. And I don't think it is because
white people and Hispanics and Asians and everybody are equally as inconvenienced by the way we vote.
SIMON: Ambassador Young, when you look back on the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and then take a look around
the country now, can you see ways in which the country has changed because of that?

Amb. YOUNG: Oh, I think the country has changed. And that's the reason why I say if I had said to Martin
Luther King in Selma that I wanted to be a congressman or maybe mayor of Atlanta one day, even the dreamer
of the 20th century would have said to me, `Boy, you sick. It's not going to be that easy. Maybe you're children
and grandchildren will have those opportunities, but we'll never be able to achieve that.' And he understood
that we're lucky if we make it to Montgomery alive. And he never could have anticipated that we would have
been as successful racially as we have been.

But the thing that we didn't get to, though, was to make the economy work. In fact, going back to Martin's
Nobel Prize speech, he said, `We are engaged in a struggle against the triple evils threatening our democracy:
racism, war and poverty.' Well, I think we addressed racism and not completely, but we are in the process of
addressing war. War is not nearly as acceptable as it was when I was growing up, but poverty is still acceptable.
We used to say in the South, where the rich white people lived, the streets were paved. Where the poor white
people lived, the streets were blacktop. Where black people lived, the streets were red dirt. And at least we got
enough votes to get all the streets paved. But I think the struggle continues. And this 40th anniversary, I don't
want us to celebrate the success of 40 years ago. I want us to take a good look at what's going on now.

SIMON: Have you ever not been able to vote because you've been traveling or you couldn't get home by 7 or you
were in Paris on important business when...

Amb. YOUNG: I really have been very diligent in respecting Election Days. I've missed some runoffs in local
elections.

SIMON: Those are kind of scheduled spontaneously, too...

Amb. YOUNG: They are.

SIMON: ...when they're necessary.

Amb. YOUNG: And...

SIMON: It's hard to plan them.

Amb. YOUNG: ...too many people died to give me the right to vote for me to take it for granted. And I knew
Medgar Evers. Martin Luther King was my best friend.

SIMON: Yeah.

Amb. YOUNG: I knew Reverend Reeb. I knew Viola Luizzo. And so this is not something I can take lightly. The
problem is that people have forgotten. And so I hope in looking back on these 40 years, we do remember the
people who gave their lives, we do remember the students who came south and risked their lives, we do
remember the young men in uniform who are fighting wars around the world for other people to have the right
to vote when they're own parents are still having difficulty voting.

SIMON: Well, I hope you don't mind me using your titles, but Reverend/Ambassador/Mayor Young, thanks
very much for being with us.

Amb. YOUNG: My pleasure.

SIMON: To listen to the full-length interview with Andrew Young, you can come to our Web site, npr.org.