Which president gave Native Americans the right to vote?

[kentonio]

I personally find it amusing that you can't choke out a simple historical fact because it runs contrary to your bias. You certainly are willing to choke out excuses for why it doesn't really count though. Odd that.

Huh? He said pretty clearly that Wilson was a racist.

[Ben Kenobi]

Huh? He said pretty clearly that Wilson was a racist.

He still hasn't stated that Coolidge gave Native Americans the vote.

[kentonio]

Who gives a **** considering their lives continued to horribly suck until long, long after that anyway, just like life for US blacks.

[rah]

It's all a futile exercise to play ben's silly little games. And obviously no one really cares.

[Al B. Sure!]

Is Ben a Calvin Coolidge fan or something?

I knew nothing about the guy but checking out his wikipedia, he seems to have been a pretty good president, all the more notable because he's so forgotten. A shame.

Like his predecessor Warren G. Harding, Coolidge was most definitely not racist, though:

In 1924, Coolidge responded to a letter that claimed the United States was a "white man's country":

....I was amazed to receive such a letter. During the war 500,000 colored men and boys were called up under the draft, not one of whom sought to evade it. [As president, I am] one who feels a responsibility for living up to the traditions and maintaining the principles of the Republican Party. Our Constitution guarantees equal rights to all our citizens, without discrimination on account of race or color. I have taken my oath to support that Constitution....[131]

It's refreshing to see such positive words from the president in such an era. I swear the American history the Liberals force-feed us is always about how terrible everyone was.

[DaShi]

So Ben made this thread to prove he's a dick? Didn't we already know that?

[Dinner]

So can anyone explain the basis for excluding American Indians and Asians from suffrage despite the 15th amendment? I've asked this in history classes but no teacher ever knew.

Under the Chinese Exclusion Act (and there was another for Japanese which also covered Koreans since they were technically a Japanese colony) most Asians couldn't become citizens and since they were not legally citizens they couldn't vote. The exception were Asians born in the US and so who automatically got citizenship and the right to vote. Native-Americans were previously thought not to be US citizens but citizens of their respective tribes which were sovereign but subject to US control. Yeah, it was pretty much just legalese in an attempt to make sure nonwhites didn't gain any political power in the country.

[SlowwHand]

Like I said, LBJ.

In 1965, the Voting Rights Act put an end to individual states claims on whether or not Indians were allowed to vote through a federal law. Section 2 of the VRA stated that, “No voting qualification or prerequisite to voting, or standard, practice, or procedure, shall be imposed or applied by any State or political subdivision to deny or abridge the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color".[53] Further sections describe the measures taken if violations to this act are discovered.

[Imran Siddiqui]

It's refreshing to see such positive words from the president in such an era. I swear the American history the Liberals force-feed us is always about how terrible everyone was.

Which ****ing history classes did you take?! Most of them are about how the US is the "best country" and though we were bastards at some points in the past, the US is super amazing regardless (well the last bit may be true ).

[giblets]

Yeah, I really don't think the history courses taught in elementary through high school are designed to convince students that everyone is terrible. So nobody is being "force fed" anything like that.

[Al B. Sure!]

Pssh. Neither of you have attended public schools in a Democratically-controlled school district.

[kentonio]

It's refreshing to see such positive words from the president in such an era. I swear the American history the Liberals force-feed us is always about how terrible everyone was.

Here's a hint: the history of pretty much every country pre-1960 is pretty horrible by todays standards, especially those that played any significant part on the global stage. Telling kids that things were awesome back then tends to lead to some serious confusion when they then discover that awesomeness included things like rampant racism, homophobia, political oppression, naked foreign aggression and so on.

[Lorizael]

Pssh. Neither of you have attended public schools in a Democratically-controlled school district.

I did. Mont-****ing-gomery county, Maryland. I was taught that America was fantastic.

[Elok]

I grew up in PG county, which is pretty heavily Democrat IIRC. We went over past acts of racism in tremendous detail. I don't remember any USA-is-great business aside from the usual bland worship of the Constitution.

[Lorizael]

I wonder if it has more to do with racial demographics than party membership demographics. Both counties are pretty Democratic, but Montgomery county is majority white and PG county is majority black.