Voting is King

“If you don’t vote, you don’t count”.

-Fannie Lou Hamer

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a courageous Civil Rights leader who inspired millions of people to use love as the highest principle for social reform. As we pause to honor his life and legacy, let us remember his lifelong passion and commitment to securing equality for all Americans through political representation. In a 1957 speech titled “Give Us The Ballot,” Dr. King spoke about the need for equal voting rights:

“So long as I do not firmly and irrevocably possess the right to vote I do not possess myself. I cannot make up my mind — it is made up for me. I cannot live as a democratic citizen, observing the laws I have helped to enact — I can only submit to the edict of others.”

In March 1965, Martin Luther King Jr. vowed to continue fighting for the right to vote:

“Let’s march on ballot boxes until race-baiters disappear from the political arena. Let us march on ballot boxes until the salient misdeeds of bloodthirsty mobs will be transformed into the calculated good deeds of orderly citizens.” 

Five months later, the Voting Rights Act became law to prohibit tactics designed to eradicate the African American vote. Within months of its passage, a quarter of a million new Black voters had been registered. Within four years, voter registration in the South had more than doubled. In 1965, Mississippi led the nation in both African American turnout –74 percent–and the number of African American leaders elected. By 1969, African American voter turnout in Tennessee was 92.1 percent; Arkansas, 77.9 percent; and Texas, 73.1 percent.

Dr. King’s  resolution to fight for voting rights resonates now more than ever. In 2024, as we honor Dr. King on his birthday, voting rights are under siege beset by a wave of attacks. Unabashedly lawmakers nationwide, with the support of a conservative Supreme Court, have reconstructed barriers to the voting process through copious strategies including discriminatory redistricting, slashing access to early voting and polling locations, particularly in Democratic leaning communities or urban areas, and indiscriminately removing people from the voter rolls, all with intent of weakening the influence and impact of Black and brown voters. Locally, Georgia Republicans are arguing that the end of affirmative action  also means that we must eliminate race-based redistricting which will ultimately reduce the influence of Black voters.

As Stacey Abrams stated, “[o]ur ability to participate in government, to elect our leaders and to improve our lives is contingent upon our ability to access the ballot. We know in our heart of hearts that voting is a sacred right – the fount from which all other rights flow.’ Protecting democracy requires a collective effort. Americans must safeguard the democratic principles that the United States is built upon which includes the fundamental right to allow citizens to participate in the decision-making process. We must remain vigilant and work together to defeat all forms of voting restriction measures and other potential threats to democracy particularly when we know the attacks are rooted in racism and an unfettered  assault on the freedom and future of the Black community. As we remember Dr. King, we must not rest. In 1965, we were fighting to get the right to vote without coercion and corruption. In 2024, we must fight that we keep it.