Last week, the Tennessee House of Representatives voted in favor of one of the most important resolutions of this century.

In a unanimous vote, the House became the last legislative body to ratify the 15th Amendment to the United States Constitution.

The amendment, which guarantees that no one is denied the right to vote because of “race, color or previous condition of servitude,” was added to the Constitution shortly after the Civil War.

Of the 37 states in the Union at the time, three-fourths approved the bill when it first became ratified on March 30, 1870.

The last state to ratify the bill, before Tennessee, was Kentucky in 1976.

While it is significant that Tennessee has finally decided to ratify this bill, it is an embarrassment for Tennessee that it has become the last state to officially acknowledge the importance of this bill.

In governing the only state to oppose what our country has fought so long and hard for, Tennessee legislators have displayed much ignorance and failure by not acting on this amendment.

As a former slave state, Tennessee legislators need to officially acknowledge that people of “race, color or previous condition of servitude” could have been given the right to vote 127 years ago.

This history, after all, is a part of Tennessee. While legislators have finally agreed to acknowledge the 15th Amendment, they can no longer ignore the magnitude of this or any other law that has positively changed humanity.

This country ought to exist under the guise of men and women having equal rights. It’s too bad Tennessee chose to ignore this for so long.