I usually don’t write in the first person when I write a blog but when it comes to this subject it is appropriate. In 1988 at the Democratic convention, the Reverend Jesse Jackson’s name was entered into nomination for president of the United States. In my household that night, four generations, my grandfather, my mother, my wife, my son and myself watched Rev. Jackson give his historic speech. As Reverend Jackson spoke my grandfather wept for quite a while.  My son looked at him and wondered why he was crying. At that time the patriarch of our family was able to tell him the significance of that moment. As he was growing up the idea of a black man entering his name for President of the United States was unthinkable. While Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm had previously run for President, Rev. Jackson had actually won primaries, was a front runner for a while and received a third of the delegates as a result.

I wonder how much joy he would have expressed had he been alive in 2008 when Barack Obama was elected president. On that day in 1988 my grandfather wept tears of joy. In 2021 while watching a news coverage about voting, a young African-American woman in Virginia said she had voted four years ago but nothing had changed and she would never vote again. I began to think that the tears of joy that would’ve been shed in 1988 and 2008 would’ve turned into tears of pain and anguish from the ancestors like Fannie Lou Hamer, Medgar Evers, Martin Luther King Jr. Rosa Parks and thousands of others named and unnamed who sacrificed everything for the right and protection of the vote. Many church goers like to quote the scripture from Hebrews 12 “since we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses.” What would those witnesses say? Would they feel betrayed?

In Virginia during the race for Governor, the black vote turned out as expected. While it was not enough to beat back the challenge of a Trump clone in moderates clothing  who benefited from a big McCauliffe gaffe, who dissed black history and culture, the black vote remains key to electoral success by the Democrat party. It is not that the Democrat party is perfect but rather that the other party is anathema not only to the interest of the black community but the nation in general.

The struggle for voting rights was a vicious and hard fought battle and remains a fight today. If only to honor the legacy of the ancestors, voting should be in the DNA of anyone who claims the mantle of being the progeny of 400 years of oppression.

There are four reasons for voting.

One is to pay homage to the ancestors who bled for this right. To not vote is to deem the actions of past generations as being without value. Those who were sick and tired of being sick and tired but nonetheless fought on. The second reason is to maintain gains won by previous generations. Victory is not permanent. It must be protected zealously. The third reason is to prevent something bad from happening. The 2020 presidential election was not just about Joe Biden but rather to prevent a morally corrupt president from being returned to the office of president. The vote in Virginia was not about Terry McCauliffe but rather to prevent Glenn Youngkin’s unabashed appeal to white grievance and disrespect for  black history and culture including the calling for the ban of Nobel laureate Toni Morrison’s “Beloved” from victory.  When we don’t vote we bear the brunt of policies designed to negatively affect our self interests.The fourth reason is to advance issues which benefit the community.

Black leaders were right to state that they will not be held accountable for Terry McCauliffe’s loss but nonetheless, the black vote stands as a major bulwark to well financed GOP lunacy that can be described these days as dystopian. 

People who claim things never change are myopic in their thinking. Change is constantly occurring. The caveat however is that it is not always the change you may want. Since 2020, election laws have changed across the nation. The John Roberts Supreme Court gutted the voting rights act which enabled states to enact these laws and create new voting districts without consequences. Abortion laws are undergoing change, deduction of state and local taxes has ended, Proud Boys are attending school board meetings, school board members are being threatened and books are being banned. Change is occurring. 

America is a pluralistic country with viewpoints as diverse as the nation itself. In its preamble the purpose of the constitution is to “form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.” The  mechanism by which this occurs is through the vote.

Americans will complain about standing on line once per year to vote but will line up for Black Friday or to buy tickets to a sporting event or concerts.

It must be remembered that voting is the culminate act of a process of having received information on issues and its consequences both positive and negative of policy decisions.

Secondly, voting must not be seen as a quadrennial event. Politics is more than just who gets into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. The well-being of the community especially those in communities of color are affected at all levels. The criminal justice system is a function of electoral politics. From district attorneys, sheriffs/constables to judges whoever is elected to these offices has a direct affect on how justice is dispensed.

The power of the vote is critical if the idea of a more perfect union is to be played out to the benefit of communities who have been historically marginalized. Nonetheless, it is also incumbent upon credible mediating institutions to inform and educate their constituents about how issues will affect them whether negatively or positively.

Every generation has an obligation to pass the torch. That torch contains the flame of history, losses, victories and most of all the idea of “faith as the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things unseen”

While some such as author Ta-Nehisi Coates may dislike the phrase  “we shall overcome because the ark of the moral universe history is long but bends towards justice” the reality is that in this nation things have improved. The reality is that the ancestors brought the nation further along through their actions and sacrifice than those whose shallow writings and rhetoric reek of  intellectual laziness.

The United States will never be a perfect country but it has clearly moved way past what it used to be. Nonetheless, oppression and other injustices remain. That powerful weapon of the public square namely the vote must be utilized often and strategically on every political level that can have even the most remote affect on the wellbeing of the community. To do anything less is to dismiss the actions of the ancestors as an exercise in futility.

On that night in 1988, the patriarch wept because he knew from whence we came. We can only hope that when the next generation asks the question why are you weeping, we can answer that we cry from joy because we know from whence we came.