In this Teen Vogue op-ed, RLaw '11 and Rutgers Law School Lecturer Yael Bromberg, who helped write the Youth Voting Rights Act, explains why it's so crucial.
Young people have always written the story of America, and they continue to today. The Youth Voting Rights Act, introduced this month by Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Representative Nikema Williams (D-GA), will help them take the pen.
Although we often see them portrayed as elder statesmen, key leaders of the American Revolution were in their teens and early twenties; several such as Alexander Hamilton went on to be among the Founding Fathers of the United States. Similarly, Frederick Douglass was only 23 years old when he first took the stage at the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society. Having escaped slavery three years earlier, he became a national leader for abolition and championed the ratification of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments during the Reconstruction era after the Civil War.