Voting is a privilege

The Inauguration on Tuesday, January 20, 2009 of our 44th President, an African-American man, prompted this post. My prediction of many years ago has come to pass.

I've always said - since I was old enough to understand such matters, i.e. knee-high to a grasshopper - that the U.S. would have an African-American man as President before a woman. Here's why:

The Fifteenth Amendment (Amendment XV) to the United States Constitution prohibits each government in the United States to prevent a citizen from voting based on that citizen's race, color or previous condition of servitude (i.e., slavery). It was ratified on February 3, 1870.

The Nineteenth Amendment (Amendment XIX) to the United States Constitution prohibits each of the states and the federal government from denying any citizen the right to vote because of that citizen's sex. The Nineteenth Amendment was specifically intended to extend suffrage to women. It was proposed on June 4, 1919 and ratified on August 18, 1920.

Voting rights took another 50 years for women after our African-American neighbors; let’s hope voting FOR a woman into office as President doesn’t take that long.