know your history, ladies!

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Elizabeth Hasselbeck, I'm sure by pure accident, was technically right. Whoopi - again technically - was wrong. What I'm trying to say is that it was all by chance, they were all assumptions. I would encourage Barbara to rethink her ladies, because right now, my friends, they are dangerously ignorant. This, coming from a foreign girl, should be extra shameful.

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The 15th Amendment (1870) to the Constitution of the United States prohibits federal or state governments from infringing on a citizen's right to vote. "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude."

The 19th Amendment (1920) to the Constitution of the United States intended to extend the right to vote to women. "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex."

The Black Codes (1830 -1866) were laws passed on the state and local level mainly in the rural Southern states to restrict the civil rights and civil liberties of African Americans. The southern states provided freedmen (emancipated slaves) with limited second-class civil rights and no voting rights.

The Jim Crow laws (1876 and 1965) required that public schools, public places and public transportation have separate buildings, toilets, and restaurants for whites and blacks.

For a better understanding of what it was like for black people to vote back then, visit this interactive piece based on the series "The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow" from PBS.