The Moral March Is A Call To Action We All Should Answer
On March 7, 1965, the first of the three Selma to Montgomery marches for voting rights and an end to racist voter suppression began and was ultimately stopped in a violent assault on the demonstrators that would come to be known as Bloody Sunday. Just two days later after the brutality of that event, the second attempt was made and Martin Luther King Jr. turned the demonstrators around in order to comply with a federal injunction in place to prevent the march until at least March 11th. It wasn’t until the third journey which set out on March 21st that marchers and supporters of the voting and civil rights movement were able to complete the route and make it safely to the Alabama capital of Montgomery with protection provided by the Alabama National Guard under federal command.
56 years later it’s worth noting that many people alive then who engaged in assaults on people who wished to vote are still with us today and that while most Americans may continue to think of voter suppression primarily in terms of a physical level of violence as seen in those 1965 demonstrations, the modern day tactics have become much more pernicious and laced in policy.
To put it another way, the sins of repressive policy designed to hurt us at the ballot box are not as far behind us as some would very much like us to believe.
In the year 2021 we still do not have equal access to the ballot and we still have lawmakers and those in power determined to keep it that way. The generational harm these kinds of anti-voter policies bring to whole communities most certainly persists.
What then are we to do in this moment to make sure we carry the fight for voting rights and advancements in voting education forward? How are we to get our lawmakers, the ones with power in Congress — how are we to get this White House administration to make real that commitment to protect our vote by passing a standard of voting rights protections at the federal level? How do we stress the point that voter suppression is a decay on democracy and that policies intended to undermine our place in the process must be unequivocally rooted out?
If our leaders say with their mouths that this is the fight of our time, how do we get them to commit through their actions to waging that fight?
I think of my own children when I reflect on these questions. They are not old enough to vote but they are growing up in a state where it is already unforgivably and inexcusably difficult to vote for too many of us. They are growing up in a state where the mantra is ingrained by some that “if it’s important enough to you, you’ll vote,” as though one’s personal conviction is the only burden or barrier between them and the ballot box. As though that ridiculous notion somehow justifies raising the bar that much higher each time in such a way that some of our most vulnerable groups of voters are left wondering each time how or if they’ll be able to clear it.
I tell my kids voting is not supposed to be that way. It’s not supposed to be Texans grappling with what level of senselessly restrictive voting policy we’re willing to take. It’s not supposed to be Texans begging for scraps from our lawmakers in terms of ways to actually improve voting access and the voting process in general. It’s not supposed to be Texans banging our heads against the wall trying to get our legislature to leave antiquated ways of doing things like voter registration behind so that we can join much of the rest of the nation in the way we grow the electorate.
Democracy is at its strongest and its healthiest when we’re all participating, when we’re all invested and when we’re all moving forward held by the fact that we rise and fall together.
For that promise to be made whole, we have to keep diligently working to make it so which means sometimes we have to put our bodies where our beliefs are.
This morning the Poor People’s Campaign kicked off day one of the Moral March from Georgetown to Austin. Inspired by the Selma to Montgomery marches, this week’s march will raise an alert on the voter suppression happening not just in Texas but in many state houses in the nation. The demonstration calls upon this Congress and this White House to work together to pass the For The People Act, restore the Voting Rights Act of 1965, to raise the minimum wage and to protect our undocumented immigrant communities.
It is time for our leaders to fully take up this cause to bring power to the people. The legislative assaults on our vote will not stop and we can’t merely ‘vote harder.’ We also need legislation that brings a greater level of transparency and accountability in our government. We need livable wages that allow us to provide for ourselves and our families and we need to honor the people in this nation who, regardless of citizen status, are no less a part of this country than you or me.
The reason these issues are so important together is because for too many generations now, those in power have held on because those of us without power are divided. When we come together, we’re stronger. When we fight, we can win. There are plenty of people trying to hang onto power right now who have a vested interest in keeping us apart but that just means we must bind tighter together.
This is the fight of our time and as Texans, as a nation, we are now called to stand alongside one another. It’s heartening to know that some elected officials in Texas have already answered that call.
It’s past time for our nation’s leaders to answer it too.
