The 15th Amendment and the black vote, or the lack thereof | COMMENTARY

As the youngest of my parents’ four children by more than a decade, I spent a great deal of my time as a child with “old folks” — my parents, my grandmothers and older babysitters who became my adoptive “Big Mamas” and “Ma Dears.” Time spent with these cultural sages made me privy to the unseen spiritual and political forces that kept my world, the South Side of Chicago, spinning on its axis.