Colorado State University hosted the annual Meyer Nathan Lecture Thursday, Oct. 30, in the Behavioral Sciences Building, where attendees were transported through several cases of voter suppression in democracies throughout history. The lecture reached from Athens and ancient Greece to the suppression of Black people’s civil rights in the 20th century.

The lecture is held annually to celebrate the legacy of its namesake, a former history professor who died in 1981. For the lecture, CSU History Club students invite panelists within the department to present brief lectures on an overarching subject, this year’s being voter suppression.

“Nathan was active at CSU throughout the ’60s in support of student causes,” a 1981 issue of The Collegian states. “He organized teach-ins on the Vietnam War and led marches and demonstrations for women’s and (Black students’) civil rights.” 

The first panelist to speak was associate teaching professor Kristin Heineman, who specializes in classics. Heineman presented a lecture entitled “Voter Suppression in Classical Antiquity” that discussed a time in which many founding principles of democracy were created, on which U.S. doctrine would later be based.

“Although this is a very, very long time ago, there are a lot of fundamental aspects of our own republic and our own democracy that kind of spring from both Athens and Greece,” Heineman said. “Some of the real key ideas of citizenship and exclusion are founded within both Athens and Greece.” 

Heineman introduced two conditions necessary for democracy to flourish in Athens and Greece, one of which involved removing power from dictators and placing it into the hands of the people.

“One of the kinds of conditions that (are) necessary for either a democracy or a republic to be instituted is high confidence in your citizens having confidence that they are capable of making decisions,” Heineman said. “In Athens, where it’s a direct democracy, all voting-eligible citizens voted directly on every single piece of policy for the state, both foreign and domestic.”

However, women and enslaved people were banned from participating in politics. Women were seen in the domestic sphere, not the public one, as philosopher Aristotle wrote.

“Aristotle said that women aren’t allowed to participate in politics because they have decreased mental faculties,” Heineman said. 

When calculated together, the true number of eligible voters in ancient Athens was sparse compared to the overall population.

“When we add it all up, we think there’s about 40,000 or so Athenians at the height of their democracy in sort of fifth century Athens, and with all this exclusion, probably only about 10% to 20% of Athenians could actually vote,” Heineman said.

Voter suppression was even more heightened in Rome, as citizens were divided into centuriae, with richer, more powerful men placed into a higher centuria and thus a higher voting power even though every man had the right to vote.

“Even though it seems very democratic, the wealthiest of the bunch (is) going to basically run the government in the way that they see fit,” Heineman said. 

The second presentation, “African American Voter Suppression,” was delivered by assistant professor of history Alexander Pittman. His discussion was divided into three critical points in African American history: Reconstruction, the Civil Rights Movement and the modern day.

Pittman began his discussion by urging the audience to analyze voter suppression from an introspective, lens as many factors accumulate to create a suppressive system.

“Intersectionality involves how those multiple identities converge to create unique challenges in society,” Pittman said.

When discussing the era of Reconstruction, Pittman examined the Colfax Massacre of 1873. During the Louisiana governor’s election, a militia took up arms to protect ballot-counting efforts. In response, another militia of armed white supremacists arrived, and innocent men were murdered.

“About 150 African Americans are killed in this violent interaction,” Pittman said. “When we think about voter suppression in this example, it’s really about the violence, the intimidation and the use of force and violence to stop the counting of the ballots in the peaceful transition of power.”

Shifting toward the Civil Rights Movement, Pittman focused the audience on the Freedom Summer, which was a movement designed to draw attention to the violent oppression Black voters faced in Mississippi while also attempting to register as many voters as possible. 

“Part of the goal was to bring attention to Mississippi by having folks from the outside, from the Northeast, also college students from wealthy families, come to the South and see what the Deep South looks like,” Pittman said. “What does this look like to actually attempt to vote in the United States in 1964?” 

Looking at the modern day, Pittman directed the audience toward various resources to counteract voter suppression while concluding with a quote from Rep. John Lewis. 

“’The vote is the most powerful nonviolent change agent you have in a democratic society,’” Pittman said, quoting John Lewis. “’You must use it because it is not guaranteed. You can lose it.’”

Lastly, Associate Teaching Professor Doug Sheflin presented his lecture entitled “Suppressing Citizenship,” which covered Mexican Repatriation in the 1930s and Japanese American incarceration camps in the 1940s. 

“Though these events seem like they’re long in the past, obviously we’re having significant conversations these days about issues related to things like immigration, citizenship, … citizenship status, deportation,” Sheflin said.

The Mexican Repatriation campaign was a government-sponsored program that forcibly removed people of Mexican descent, even if they were born in the U.S. 

“The repatriation program meant the eviction of 400,000 — (up to) 2 million (people),” Sheflin said. “What is generally agreed upon is that about 50% of the population were, in fact, American citizens born in this country.” 

Family histories and lifestyles were erased when people were forced to return to a country they had left decades ago or had never even stepped foot in.

“Many of them — by their records, by their journals, by their diaries — hadn’t been in Mexico in decades,” Sheflin said. “They had no family there. They had no connection there. They had no employment opportunities there.”

The lecture then shifted toward the incarceration of Japanese Americans, an event in which approximately 120,000 people of Japanese descent, a majority of whom were U.S. citizens, were put in 10 War Relocation Authority incarceration camps and other camps across the country during World War II.

“They were given the option to take two suitcases worth of their material goods and to wait for a train or a bus for their relocation centers,” Sheflin said. “Japanese and Japanese Americans who were incarcerated lost over $400 million in family valuables. …The majority of them, when they attempt to return home, have no home to return (to).” 

One camp was located in Granada, Colorado, and housed more than 10,000 people, many of whose rights were violated.

“What was perhaps most insulting for 8,000 American citizens who were put behind barbed wire (in Granada) and surveilled with machine guns is that the idea of incarceration was to somehow learn to be good Americans,” Sheflin said.

Sheflin concluded his presentation by connecting the examples of Japanese American internment and Mexican Repatriation together along the thread of the question: Who is ‘American’ enough to have rights in America’s democracy? This question has remained steadfast among democratic institutions from the era of ancient Greece to the modern day.

“Voter suppression is one manifestation of this questioning (of rights),” Sheflin said. “We assume certain rights and liberties and responsibilities with citizenship.”

Reach Katie Fisher at news@collegian.com or on social media @CSUCollegian.