The Importance of the Voting Rights Act Revisited

Recently, The Voting Rights Act of 1965 has been unfortunately under attack again in order to minimize, reduce and discourage African Americans and people of color from exercising their constitutional right to vote.  This concerted effort by a mostly right-wing contingent and their supporters has been an ongoing process since its inception. The guise this time is basically that the targeted states and counties in the south and other places covered by this act are free of racism, discrimination and a deeply imbedded propensity to disenfranchise African Americans and people of color from their constitutional rights, which is inherently false. 

I can remember my parents, Matthew and Janie Berry Crawford, talking about the difficulties in registering and not being able to vote.  My mother, who graduated from college in the early 1940s and was a schoolteacher for more than 40 years in Shelby County, Alabama (a county challenging The Voting Rights Act), described the literacy tests, the poll tax and the intimidation that was inflicted on blacks who wanted to vote. I can still hear and feel my mother’s disappointment that so many were not able to vote because of the obstacles and overt threats of violence and death.  However, my mother and father continued to stay committed and were able to register and vote after many years of denial. In my mother’s joy of voting, she was also saddened that her parents could never vote.

My mother died in 1991 and left her family with a legacy of understanding the importance of registering and voting at every opportunity. When I was able to register and vote in Alabama, I voted and I have registered and voted in every state that I have lived in since. My children are also active voters.

As an American citizen, your constitutional right to vote is extremely important, and even more so for those who were denied the right for so long including people of color and women. What if this right was taken away, marginalized, restricted and manipulated in a plethora of devious ways again tomorrow? Each vote counts and do not let anyone try to convince you otherwise that it does not. Elections have been lost because too many people thought or were told that their vote did not count.

Don’t be the person speaking up about political issues and not even be registered to vote like an individual I knew in my youth. If you talk the talk, you have to walk the walk. If we want to flex our rhetoric, we must be able to “show and prove” by using our power at the voting booth not sometime, but every time.

So, why is voting every time so important? Is it about the political party, the candidate, the legislation, the economics or the many other options? Not entirely. Because so many African Americans, women and others suffered, endured, and sacrificed for their progeny to have the right to vote and make their voices heard in their country’s political process.

Register and vote and tell others to do the same.

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