{"id":320086,"date":"2026-06-03T01:17:53","date_gmt":"2026-06-03T01:17:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/320086\/"},"modified":"2026-06-03T01:17:53","modified_gmt":"2026-06-03T01:17:53","slug":"el-paso-barber-remembered-for-casting-the-first-african-american-vote-in-illinois","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/320086\/","title":{"rendered":"El Paso barber remembered for casting the first African American vote in Illinois"},"content":{"rendered":"

EL PASO (25News Now<\/a>) -More than 150 years ago, an El Paso barber made Illinois history when he became the first African American man to vote in the state after the ratification of the 15th Amendment.<\/p>\n

When David Strother arrived at the polls on April 4, 1870, he correctly believed he had the right to vote. <\/p>\n

The Civil War chef and barber had been invited by El Paso\u2019s mayor after the 15th Amendment granted Black men the right to cast a ballot.<\/p>\n

When Strother arrived, however, an election judge turned him away.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne in particular denies him the right to vote. He says he\u2019s not aware of the 15th Amendment. So David returns here, resumes cutting hair,\u201d said Brian Ulrich, the curator and exhibit designer of Project XV Museum<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Hours later, after officials confirmed the amendment had been ratified, Strother was called back to the polls, where he cast what became the first African American vote in Illinois.<\/p>\n

Museum preserves voting rights history<\/p>\n

Today, that story is preserved inside the Project XV Museum, a space inspired by local students who uncovered Strother\u2019s legacy during a history class project.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe kids really thought it was interesting. And they\u2019re like, we got to do something. We got to tell his story. I can\u2019t believe people don\u2019t know this. And I\u2019m like, well, we could design a museum around this space,\u201d said Michael Melick, El Paso teacher and co-chair of Project XV Museum.<\/p>\n

Museum leaders say Strother\u2019s perseverance remains relevant as voting rights continue to be debated across the country.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can certainly see parallels between what\u2019s going on today in an attempt to disenfranchise certain voting groups and what happened in the past. Some of the same things seem to be happening again in different ways. The fight for rights for everyone is never really over,\u201d said Ulrich.<\/p>\n

The museum explores voting rights struggles throughout American history, from Reconstruction to the present day.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur words and our exhibits have to match our mission that all votes matter. And so that\u2019s why that was important to us, to expand it beyond just the African-American voting struggle, because lots of groups, I mean, half the population, women weren\u2019t allowed to vote except in New Jersey at the founding in 1776. So that\u2019s half of the American population right there denied the right to vote,\u201d said Melick.<\/p>\n

The Project XV Museum is open on Mondays from noon to 4 pm. <\/p>\n

They also have several free events coming up, including one on July 4th. To check out their scheduled events, click here. <\/a><\/p>\n

You can watch 25News<\/a> – any newscast, anywhere – streaming LIVE<\/a> on 25NewsNow.com<\/a>, our 25News mobile app<\/a>, and on our WEEK 25News SmartTV streaming app<\/a>. Learn more about how you can get connected to 25News streaming live news here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 WEEK. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EL PASO (25News Now) -More than 150 years ago, an El Paso barber made Illinois history when he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":320087,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[114784,1528,114788,114783,138,140,139,114787,114785,114790,114789,114786,449],"class_list":["post-320086","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-el-paso","tag-15th-amendment-illinois","tag-25news","tag-brian-ulrich","tag-david-strother","tag-el-paso","tag-el-paso-headlines","tag-el-paso-news","tag-el-paso-voting-rights-history","tag-first-black-vote-illinois","tag-imani-mcclay","tag-michael-melick","tag-project-xv-museum","tag-week"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=320086"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320086\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/320087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=320086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=320086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=320086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}