If I had your vote,
oh, the things I could do!
Oh, the things could do
with a YES vote from you!
If I had your vote,
and if I were in charge,
I would make a few changes.
Some small and some large.
from If I had Your Vote
written by Dr. Seuss (with a little help fromAlastair Heim)
illustrated by Tom Brannon
Random House Children's Books/Penguin Random House, 2020
Last month my grandson turned 18. He’s eager to vote. He saw his mom and grandma vote. He has heard stories of my great-grandma (his great, great, great grandma), a suffragist who marched for Women’s Rights in the 1920s.
Who can vote has been a question debated in government and on the streets and at kitchen tables and salons since the heydays of Ancient Greece and Rome. In those days, women were not allowed to vote. Not to say that women in those times (and ours) were (and are) uneducated, uninterested, or even unable (intellectually or otherwise), the times were full of misogyny. Women in those ancient days (and our own not so long ago days) were smart, capable, and determined. But they were denied a voice. They were not even citizens.
We have come a long way, but still have a long way to go.
On February 18, 1965, Reverend C.T. Vivian led a march to the courthouse in Marion, Alabama, to draw attention to the Civil Rights Movement. The peaceful march protested the arrest of leading Civil Rights activist, James Orange. It turned deadly when Alabama state troopers attacked the marchers and fatally shot Jimmie Lee Jackson. He died of his wounds eight days later.
John Lewis and Reverend Hosea Williams led marchers to talk to Governor George Wallace about Jimmie Lee Jackson’s death. Alabama law enforcement officials violently stopped them at the Edmund Pettus Bridge. That first march, from Selma to Montgomery, on March 7, 1965, became known as “Bloody Sunday.” Over 60 marchers were injured including John Lewis who suffered a fractured skull and Amelia Boynton who was beaten unconscious.
Two days later, on “Turnaround Tuesday” Martin Luther King led 2,500 people to the Edmund Pettus Bridge. After finding troopers and police there, MLK turned the people around without entering the unincorporated area of the county. Nevertheless, the Ku Klux Klan attacked Reverend James Reeb who died later from his injuries.
Then, on March 25, over 8,000 people led by MLK and Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschl, finally crossed the bridge and arrived in Montgomery, the state capitol. They stood below the governor’s window where MLK delivered an inspirational speech. He told the people to have heart. He told them “truth crushed into the ground will rise again.”
He told them “[t]he arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”
MLK spoke with President Lyndon Johnson. So did George Wallace, Alabama’s governor.
It took until August 6, 1965, for Congress to pass the Voting Rights Bill. President Johnson signed it into law the next day. Ninety-five years after the fifteenth amendment to the Constitution was ratified, this law, The Voting Rights Act of 1965, outlawed literacy tests (poll taxes had been outlawed the year before) and provided federal examiners to make sure all citizens in all states could exercise their right to vote safely. By the end of 1965, over 250,000 new Black voters had registered to vote.
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was re-adopted and strengthened in 1970, 1975, and 1982.
In Mississippi and Alabama, especially, registered voter rolls increased dramatically, from less than 10% to over 60%.
But since the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act in 2013, with their decision on Shelby County v. Holder, those states with a history of race-based voter suppression were no longer required to submit changes they made to their election laws to the US Department of Justice for “preclearance.” Now there is no governmental oversight of state’s voting laws.
A report from the US Census Bureau shows significantly wider disparities in voter registration and turnout since the Shelby decision.
Ruth Bader Ginsberg said in her dissent, “[t]hrowing out preclearance when it has worked and is continuing to work to stop discriminatory changes is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet.”
How unfortunately true are her words.
Today is Super Tuesday. Today, voters in 16 states and one territory will vote. Even though a significant number of ballots will have been cast by the end of the day, it’s not even close to the end of the road. Primaries continue in the states until June 4, when New Hampshirites, New Mexicans, and South Dakotans will vote.
This Primary Season let’s fight fear and anger with action.
Inform ourselves about the candidates and issues: local; state; and federal.
Use what we discover to fuel our voices.
Speak our truth.
Encourage friends, family, and everyone else to vote.
My grandson will vote in his first election on November 5. Let’s let him be our role model!
I will start reading Mockingbird Summer by Lynda Rutledge (Lake Union Publishing/Amazon, 2024) this morning. It’s based on the friendship of two young girls, one Black and one white, and draws on themes in Harper Lee’s classic. Stay tuned for a review.
-—Be curious! (and informed)
oh, the things I could do!
Oh, the things could do
with a YES vote from you!
If I had your vote,
and if I were in charge,
I would make a few changes.
Some small and some large.
from If I had Your Vote
written by Dr. Seuss (with a little help fromAlastair Heim)
illustrated by Tom Brannon
Random House Children's Books/Penguin Random House, 2020
Last month my grandson turned 18. He’s eager to vote. He saw his mom and grandma vote. He has heard stories of my great-grandma (his great, great, great grandma), a suffragist who marched for Women’s Rights in the 1920s.
Who can vote has been a question debated in government and on the streets and at kitchen tables and salons since the heydays of Ancient Greece and Rome. In those days, women were not allowed to vote. Not to say that women in those times (and ours) were (and are) uneducated, uninterested, or even unable (intellectually or otherwise), the times were full of misogyny. Women in those ancient days (and our own not so long ago days) were smart, capable, and determined. But they were denied a voice. They were not even citizens.
We have come a long way, but still have a long way to go.
On February 18, 1965, Reverend C.T. Vivian led a march to the courthouse in Marion, Alabama, to draw attention to the Civil Rights Movement. The peaceful march protested the arrest of leading Civil Rights activist, James Orange. It turned deadly when Alabama state troopers attacked the marchers and fatally shot Jimmie Lee Jackson. He died of his wounds eight days later.
John Lewis and Reverend Hosea Williams led marchers to talk to Governor George Wallace about Jimmie Lee Jackson’s death. Alabama law enforcement officials violently stopped them at the Edmund Pettus Bridge. That first march, from Selma to Montgomery, on March 7, 1965, became known as “Bloody Sunday.” Over 60 marchers were injured including John Lewis who suffered a fractured skull and Amelia Boynton who was beaten unconscious.
Two days later, on “Turnaround Tuesday” Martin Luther King led 2,500 people to the Edmund Pettus Bridge. After finding troopers and police there, MLK turned the people around without entering the unincorporated area of the county. Nevertheless, the Ku Klux Klan attacked Reverend James Reeb who died later from his injuries.
Then, on March 25, over 8,000 people led by MLK and Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschl, finally crossed the bridge and arrived in Montgomery, the state capitol. They stood below the governor’s window where MLK delivered an inspirational speech. He told the people to have heart. He told them “truth crushed into the ground will rise again.”
He told them “[t]he arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”
MLK spoke with President Lyndon Johnson. So did George Wallace, Alabama’s governor.
It took until August 6, 1965, for Congress to pass the Voting Rights Bill. President Johnson signed it into law the next day. Ninety-five years after the fifteenth amendment to the Constitution was ratified, this law, The Voting Rights Act of 1965, outlawed literacy tests (poll taxes had been outlawed the year before) and provided federal examiners to make sure all citizens in all states could exercise their right to vote safely. By the end of 1965, over 250,000 new Black voters had registered to vote.
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was re-adopted and strengthened in 1970, 1975, and 1982.
In Mississippi and Alabama, especially, registered voter rolls increased dramatically, from less than 10% to over 60%.
But since the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act in 2013, with their decision on Shelby County v. Holder, those states with a history of race-based voter suppression were no longer required to submit changes they made to their election laws to the US Department of Justice for “preclearance.” Now there is no governmental oversight of state’s voting laws.
A report from the US Census Bureau shows significantly wider disparities in voter registration and turnout since the Shelby decision.
Ruth Bader Ginsberg said in her dissent, “[t]hrowing out preclearance when it has worked and is continuing to work to stop discriminatory changes is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet.”
How unfortunately true are her words.
Today is Super Tuesday. Today, voters in 16 states and one territory will vote. Even though a significant number of ballots will have been cast by the end of the day, it’s not even close to the end of the road. Primaries continue in the states until June 4, when New Hampshirites, New Mexicans, and South Dakotans will vote.
This Primary Season let’s fight fear and anger with action.
Inform ourselves about the candidates and issues: local; state; and federal.
Use what we discover to fuel our voices.
Speak our truth.
Encourage friends, family, and everyone else to vote.
My grandson will vote in his first election on November 5. Let’s let him be our role model!
I will start reading Mockingbird Summer by Lynda Rutledge (Lake Union Publishing/Amazon, 2024) this morning. It’s based on the friendship of two young girls, one Black and one white, and draws on themes in Harper Lee’s classic. Stay tuned for a review.
-—Be curious! (and informed)
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