Speaker says blacks can't afford not to vote

      At the first meeting Thursday of the Southern Nevada Coalition of Concerned Women, members heard about the importance of encouraging blacks to vote and the struggle that made suffrage possible.
      About 300 people attended the luncheon with keynote speaker Elaine Jones, director counsel of the NAACP's Legal Defense and Education Fund.
      Jones recapped the purpose of the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments to the Constitution and the role they played for blacks.
      Freedom from slavery and recognition under the Constitution for blacks came with the 13th, civil rights came with the 14th and the right to vote resulted from the 15th amendment, Jones said.
      In speaking on the evolution of voting privileges in America, Jones pointed out that it was well after the 15th amendment passed in 1870 that women were allowed to vote and even longer before equality in voting arrived for blacks and black women especially.
      Jones said blacks cannot afford not to vote.
      "Today we are standing on the shoulders of others. We have a responsibility to remember Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman and all they endured for us to get here," Jones said.
      The Howard University graduate, who earned her law degree from the University of Virginia Law School, also talked about affirmative action. Jones described it not as move to create employment equality but "about taking a second look at people who you don't normally look at."
      Problems plaguing black America are structural and systemic involving lending, small business, neighborhoods and transportation, Jones said. But organized groups can make a difference, because unless a community fights for change there will be no change, Jones said.
      The Legal Defense and Education Fund was formed out of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1940 and later became a separate entity.
      It is primarily fueled by donations and handles cases of gender, age, ethnicity and disability discrimination, Jones said.