There was a time in American history where the right to vote was so sacred, so sacrosanct, that the battle over who was worthy and who was not was so intense that everyday Americans just like you and me organized, and assembled, and fought, and bled and died to get the right or keep others from having the right.
Voting is really important.
Let me tell you a story.
Originally, a bunch of men lived overseas, became tired of taxation without representation and crossed the waters of the ocean to the US to create their own government, a democracy, where they could be self governing, civilized and generally uphold the ideaology of a free life and liberty and justice.
They were white, generally wealthy, and they were not perfect, and while their ideals were good, they weren't ready to look beyond the social parameters of their time and uphold those rights for people who weren't also white, male and generally wealthy.
Such was the birth of the civil rights movement as we have come to call the historical fight for equal rights across the marginalized sects in this country.
Women, in their quest for the vote, imagined themselves as powerful goddesses and warriors of light, mythical in their wisdom and justice, and staged parades, sit-ins and conscious raising events, dressed in elaborate costumes and defined themselves warriors in the fight for a political voice.
They were radical, they critized an Administration that would fight for democracy and justice abroad and deny the same to 50% of its citizens at home.
They were punished. A lot.
They were fined, spat upon, beaten, harassed by angry mobs and by police, imprisoned on false charges, force fed to break hunger strikes, falsely committed to mental institutions and degraded by the political adminstration and popular media, who called them muckrakers and dragged them through the mud. In response, they named themselves, suffragists, and vowed to suffer through whatever blocks in their way, and continued to lobby until the right to vote was granted to women, and later the equal rights ammendment added to the constitution of the United States.
They won. On August 26th, 1920, a constitutional ammendment was ratified granting American women the right to vote.
Unfortunately, people of color would have a much longer struggle.
On paper,African Americans in the United States had equal protection under the law dating back to the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1875, which guaranteed equal rights for blacks in public places and made illegal the exclusion of African Americans from jury duty. The reality of segregation and descrimination was a different story, however, as first white America imposed unjust laws such as literacy tests, poll tax and complicated registration policies to keep people of color (and poor white people) out of the voting booths. In the 1960s, the battle for civil rights and the end of segregation and descrimination stepped up considerably. Activists who called themselves "Freedom Fighters" came from all over the North and flooded the South to fight to register African Americans to vote.
On March 7, 1965, 600 people, mostly African American, staged a march in which they planned to walk from Selma, Alabama to Montgomery, Alabama to draw attention to recent struggles and violent tactics preventing citizens of Selma from registering to vote. They marched six blocks until they reached the Edmund Pettus Bridge and attempted to leave Selma lines. In what would later become known as Bloody Sunday, agents of state government including state troopers, local and county policemen attacked the unarmed protesters and drove them back into the city with tear gas, clubs and bullwhips. All because they feared what would happen when black people stood up and claimed their political power. When they voted.
Undaunted, they staged two more marches on the same route, determined to get to Montgomery. All over the South, however, retribution was heavy as private citizens took up the cause and fought on the side of the oppressors. African Americans paid the price. They were punished. A lot.
Eventually, on August 6, 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The act abolished the use of literacy testing, poll taxing and local registration practices and federalized the voter registration process, thereby circumventing local government bigotry and standardizing the methods by which we all still vote today.
When I look at this history, today, as a 32 year old woman living in this time of political turmoil and facing my own disenfranchisement as an American citizen, I have to wonder what has happened to create a widespread devaluing of our collective right to vote. A vote is a voice, it's participation in our own self-governing process, and it's a power that has been so historically coveted as to inspire bloodshed and heroism on very personal scales. Over and over in history those in power have recognized the power, the danger of voting, of giving everyday people the power to unseat their ruling party. How is it that we've allowed ourselves to believe that our votes don't matter, don't have an impact on our local and national administrations, and isn't worth our time? Isn't that what they've always wanted us to believe? It's the greatest, most cunning con in history, really, this breeding of political apathy that teaches us that voting is little more than a symbolic act, a relic of freedoms we no longer need concern ourselves with.
Bullshit to that.
Bullshit to politicians and media analysts who tell us that the electoral college decides anyway. Bullshit to our family and friends who tell us that their oppositional vote will cancel ours out anyway. Bullshit to the forms, the lines, the picking our kids up from school or getting up early to vote before work or the hundred ways we talk ourselves out of claiming what we worked so hard to achieve in the first place.
Today, November 7th, is the midterm elections. We, all of us, have the right, the consciousness and the fucking obligation to get to the polls and vote. The Senate, the governership, local district representatives. All of it matters.
Even if you think it doesn't matter, even if you think it won't change anything, even if you think it's a bullshit waste of your time, VOTE.
If you live in New York City, check out a guide to the candidates and their backgrounds and partisan histories here.
If you don't live in New York and you want to find out who's running in your local election and what they stand for, check out a regional map and follow the links here.
If you need to find your polling location, figure out where you can register to vote, or get other questions about your local voting process, get that info here.
They've won when reject our own given political power.
