March 7 was the 50th anniversary of “Bloody Sunday,” the Selma march. It is very much in the news today and also prominent as a result of the Oscar-nominated movie, “Selma,” which details the horrific events of that march.
My brother, age 27 in the summer of 1964, was a minister-counselor with the National Council of Churches in McComb, Mississippi, helping register blacks to vote and helping teach nonviolent tactics for self-protection against the beatings and violence that occurred. His church-denomination elders took him by the shoulder and shoved him outside from Sunday services saying, “You’re not welcome here.” The house he was living in was bombed. Three young men working in that project in Mississippi were killed. It was a violent summer.
I have some idea of what it took to extend the vote to all; it did not happen through petitions. The Selma march ultimately helped lead to the Voting Rights Act of 1965, subsequently extended by Presidents Nixon, Ford and Reagan. In 2011, a record number of restrictions to voting were introduced in state legislatures nationwide, including voter ID requirements. In South Carolina alone, it was estimated the new restrictions would disenfranchise more than 180,000 black voters. Discrimination at the polls persists today and cannot be dismissed as a relic of the past.
I have worked with our La Plata County clerk, Tiffany Parker, as an election judge, and have appreciated her attention to fairness, her support of mail-in ballots, and her determination to make sure everyone can exercise their right to vote. How many voter-fraud cases can actually be documented? Darn few.
Please, let’s not make it harder to vote. Let’s continue to work on guaranteeing the right to vote to all, even more important since the wrongful decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which lets the wealthy buy our elections. Let’s be a nation of, by and for the people, not of/by/for corporations. Let’s not pass more restrictive laws, such as voter-ID laws. Move forward, not backward, to support the right of all people to vote.
Marilyn McCord
Vallecito
