In doing some January decluttering, I came across these three buttons from my high school days. Those days are long past; it is over fifty years since I graduated from Needham Broughton High School in Raleigh, North Carolina. Yet it is interesting what these three buttons represent: (1) the right to vote; (2) racial justice; and (3) peace.
Fifty years ago. Yet the messages on these buttons still echo loudly. I wore these buttons when I was 17 years old, but I could just as well be wearing them now.
Voting rights. Racial justice. Peace.
Why is change so slow? Why is the arc of the moral universe so long?
Some of the younger readers of this blog may not be familiar with SNCC—the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee. SNCC was founded in 1960 ; I was 11 years old at the time—the age of one of our grandchildren now. SNCC formed in the wake of the student-led sit ins at segregated lunch counters across the South. The most notable one occurred in 1960 in Greensboro, North Carolina.
I had sat at one of those very lunch counters, at a Woolworth’s in my hometown of Raleigh. It was there that I enjoyed my first ever banana split with my grandmother. That lunch counter was a magical place to me—the swiveling stools, the waitresses in their starched uniforms, those exotic offerings of milk shakes and grilled cheese sandwiches. It would have never crossed my young mind that some people, because of their skin color, could not be served at that lunch counter. My white privilege allowed me to be naive.
I was not a member of SNCC (pronounced snick) which was organized by young men and women committed to ending racial discrimination and segregation, often through boycotting businesses.By the time I was in high school I knew about SNCC and had a friend whose two older brothers were actively involved in the civil rights movement. It was probably one of those brothers (college students) who gave me the SNCC buttons.
Founding SNCC members included the late Congressman John Lewis; Julian Bond.; Robert Moses; Fannie Lou Hamer, Ella Baker and later Stokely Carmichael. These young people (and they were young when SNCC was founded) were filled with hope even in a time when we might wonder how they could have believed the world could be changed.
As full of hope as I was in my last blog post, I felt discouraged by the failure of the Senate to pass the Voting Rights bills that were before it a few nights ago. Not one single Republican Senator voted yes for voting rights. How sad is that? I called my Senators the next morning to express my disappointment; I had called them the previous week asking them to please vote yes. They didn’t. I wonder if they care at all that there are many of us who were disappointed.
To be honest, most of us were probably not surprised by their vote—though remember, I am a dope with hope….I truly hoped I would be surprised by their vote of YES. O mortal…I still keep expecting a conscience to kick in and for my Senators to vote for what is right instead of how their Party leaders tell them to vote.
About those voting rights. One Man, One Vote says my old button. Today we probably cringe a little at the word man, though it is a reminder of how long it has taken (is still taking) for women to be included as equal. The right to vote has had many barriers. Race, gender, age.
The proposed 26th Amendment passed the House and Senate in the spring of 1971 and was ratified by the states on July 1, 1971. This amendment changed the age to vote from 21 to 18. Much of the reasoning behind the change was related to the Vietnam War—if a young man was old enough to be drafted and go to war at age 18, surely a person was old enough to vote by that age. I was 21 years old in July 1971 and would be able to vote in November for the first time. I was so excited to be able to vote. I have never missed the opportunity to cast my vote.
Even before I could advocate for my own right to vote I already knew that the color of your skin should not be a criteria for the right to vote. What I can’t understand is why we are where we are today in regard to voting rights. Why would anyone for any good reason want to prevent others from voting? I don’t think there are good reasons; I think we need to own up to what is blatant voting suppression.
We need to face the fact that multiple states are hard at work to make it more difficult to vote for certain segments of our population.This is why we need federal legislation to protect voting rights in every state, every community. The Senate failed us. The Senate failed our country.
Maine Senator Angus King presents it well:
Elections are, and always have been, the bedrock of that democracy; as Thomas Paine said at our nation’s birth, the right to vote is the primary right by which other rights are protected. We should be taking every step imaginable to protect and expand the right to vote, making it easier for every single American to have their voice heard and express their support for or against candidates and policies. Instead, 50 of my Senate colleagues prefer to keep Congress on the sidelines while partisan legislatures in states across the country enact laws designed to erect barriers between voters and the ballot box.
We have to speak up. We have to name what is clearly voter suppression, what is clearly racism. We have to call out those who lie about voter fraud (which has been repeatedly proved there was none). Whether we speak up to our family or our neighbors or in a blog post, we have to speak up and keep speaking up. We have to keep making phone calls to those in power even when it feels like we are banging our heads against an impenetrable wall.
We have to keep fighting for voting rights, for racial justice (the word justice simply means fair), and peace.
Peace. We sit on the precipice of fearing what may happen between Russia and Ukraine. We have seen the horrors of what has happened and is still going on in Syria and other places in the world. North Korea continues to launch missiles. Violence is becoming more commonplace here in America.
Fifty years ago I wore these buttons. At some point, I felt I didn’t need to wear them any longer. I took them off and put them away in a drawer.
Fifty years—one half of a century—and we are still not where we hoped to be.
As Fannie Lou Hamer said, “I am sick and tired of feeling sick and tired.” I think we have come in a circle back to this sick and tired time.
But we need to keep going. We cannot give up this fight.
I still believe there are many more people who want fair voting and racial justice and peace throughout the world than those who battle against these causes. I am not so naive that I don’t understand the overwhelming lust for power and money, yet I think we are responsible for holding our own plumb line.
In the words of the prophet Micah:
O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?
Thank you, Jeanne! Absolutely, sick and tired, and very discouraged - I'm trying to be hopeful but am very worried about our country.
Sick and tired… preach it, sister!