Civic Power Collection
Why Your Vote Matters:
Without telling anyone how to vote, it’s a fact that elected officials make decisions in areas that disproportionately affect women and women of color, including:
- Reproductive health & bodily autonomy (abortion access, maternal health). Black and Indigenous maternal mortality rates are significantly higher than white women’s in the U.S.
- Economic security (pay equity, tipped wages, childcare subsidies, paid leave). Women of color face larger wage gaps.
- Healthcare access (Medicaid expansion, prescription pricing, community clinics).
- Housing & environmental justice (redlining legacies, eviction protections, air & water quality near marginalized neighborhoods).
- Criminal legal system (policing, prosecution priorities, cash bail, sentencing reform) that shape family stability.
- Immigration policy (family separation, DACA, work authorization, asylum processes) that uniquely affect many women of color and their families.
- Tribal sovereignty & voting access on reservations (address requirements, distance to polling sites, language access).
Voting wasn’t freely given to women of color. It was fought for. It was resisted. It was earned in courtrooms, in marches, in pain. And it’s still being protected
🔸 1920: The 19th Amendment passed
- White women gained the right to vote nationwide.
- Black, Native, Latina, and Asian women were still systematically denied the vote—due to racist state laws, literacy tests, poll taxes, intimidation, and lack of citizenship.
🔸 1924: The Indian Citizenship Act
- Granted Native Americans U.S. citizenship, but not necessarily the right to vote.
- Many states—including Arizona—refused to let Native people vote until court challenges in the 1940s–1960s.
- Arizona blocked Native voting until 1948 when the state Supreme Court struck it down.
🔸 1952: McCarran-Walter Act
- This allowed first-generation Asian Americans to become naturalized citizens, which made voting possible—decades after many had lived and worked in the U.S.
🔸 1965: The Voting Rights Act (VRA)
- Banned poll taxes, literacy tests, and intimidation tactics used to suppress Black voters—especially in the South.
- Protected Latino, Native, and Asian American voters through later amendments that required language access and translated materials in places like Arizona, California, and Texas.
🔸 1975: VRA Expanded to Protect Language Minorities
- Required states to provide bilingual ballots and assistance in jurisdictions where a significant number of non-English speakers (like Spanish or Navajo speakers) lived.
Get involved beyond the ballot: volunteer, organize, testify
- Who holds office influences what gets heard: committee agendas, what’s prioritized, and which crises are named. Women of color remain underrepresented at nearly every level of government relative to their share of the population.
- Local offices—school boards, county attorneys, sheriffs, judges, city councils—often determine day-to-day realities (curriculum, prosecution, tenant protections) more than people realize.
For many communities of color, “civic power” has always included mutual aid, organizing, court challenges, public testimony, running for office, and yes, voting. Voting is one tool in a much larger toolkit communities have used to fight for safety, dignity, and resources.