Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Page 2 I will concentrate my brief remarks today on the denial of voting representation in the national legislature of the United States for the approximately 600,000 residents of Washington, DC, the capital city of my country. The issue of voting rights for the nation’s capital is a matter of particular irony in a nation that prides itself on its democratic traditions, and yet is only one of a very few countries that deny voting representation in their national legislature to residents of their capital city. However, for purposes of this meeting, the real issue is the strong likelihood that the racial make-up of our nation’s capital, which is majority African American, is a significant factor in the ongoing denial of this basic democratic right, Despite its young history as a nation, the struggle for equality in the United States is filled with hard won victories and numerous setbacks. However, few areas are as contentious in this turbulent history as the struggle for voting rights - the very right that makes it possible to defend all our other rights – a right that many have protested, fought, and died to protect. But for more than 200 years, the residents of our nation’s capital have been denied voting representation in Congress. While D.C. residents were granted the right to vote for president in 1961,3 the right to voting representation in the Congress of the United States has remained out of reach. The question presented to this body is simple; “Why are the residents of our nation’s capital denied voting representation in Congress and the same measure of home rule as other Americans?” There appear to be two reasons for this anomaly. First, Washington, D.C. was 3 U.S. Constitution Amendment XXIII.