Dear Editor:

As an avid reader of the magazine, I read the article in the October 29, 1998 issue -- titled, "The Tuskegee Experiment's Long Shadow" -- and find that I am also a victim of the conspiracy theories concerning African Americans: I had heard the rumor about the fifth digit in a person's social security number indicating whether you are African American or not and I sort of believed it.

Well I have now been overwhelmed with another "rumor." I have been told by a group of well-educated acquaintances that the eligibility for African Americans to vote is up for reconsideration. I was told that it was urgent that African Americans vote in this election because Congress, in the next session, will decide if African Americans should retain their right to vote in United States. Is there is any truth to this rumor.

Again, the magazine is a great resource tool. Please keep up the good work.

Yolanda Simmons

Council on Racial & Ethnic Justice

American Bar Association

Dear Ms. Simmons:

Contrary to what you have heard, African Americans are not in jeopardy of losing their right to vote.

The right of all men and women of color to vote is guaranteed by Fifteenth and Nineteenth Amendments to the Constitution, which respectively, prohibit voter discrimination on the basis of race and gender.

According to the Encyclopedia of African-American History and Culture, "the Voting Rights Act of 1965, signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson, was designed to reverse the historic disenfranchisement of the Black electorate, which had been the hallmark of southern politics since the end of Reconstruction." The Voting Rights Act put an end to practices that made it difficult for Blacks in the South to register and to vote.

Since 1965, the Voting Rights Act has been extended and strengthened three times, most recently in 1982, during the Reagan Administration. The next review and renewal is scheduled to occur in the year 2007.