My Vote Counts for Something!

I've spent too many years seeing and experiencing some very bad things that have happened to people, in their lives in general and specifically around their ability or inability to vote. As a youngster I went to Selma, Alabama because I saw people on TV being beaten and chased by horses when they were making a point, a simple point about their right to vote. Their right had been denied and suppressed by rules and tests that were not only foolish and mean but ultimately illegal. They got mad because they had seen their brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers and friends throughout the country discriminated against in the same way. They were beaten, jailed and killed over this right to vote. I was lucky. I was only called names and arrested.

I saw young men drafted and sent to Vietnam, thousands killed while government officials were eventually shown to have lied to the American people while winning elections and asking for votes. Many of those young soldiers never had the opportunity to vote.

For many years I worked with people who had intellectual disabilities. I saw the time when those individuals were housed in institutions with little care, support or education and in addition no right or ability to vote. I remember the times when people would laugh about giving someone "like that" the right to vote.

The list is too long but there are some names that people have to remember, have to think about when we talk about the right to vote. People who were killed in the struggle. People like Jimmie Lee Jackson, Rev. James Reeb and Viola Liuzzo. They all died in the Selma fight. Andrew Goodman, James Earl Cheney and Michael Henry Schwerner all killed in Mississippi while working on voter registration. Medgar Evers, Martin Luther King, Jr. and on and on.

So when people tell me or tell you that our votes don't count, they're wrong. Our votes all count. Mine counts just like those people in Selma who were beaten and killed. My vote counts the same as those young men who lost their lives in Vietnam should have counted. It counts just like all the intellectually disabled people who vote or should vote. It counts like all the women who had to fight for their own right to vote. It's an equalizer, that vote. It's rich and poor, company boss and trade unionist. I get angry and frustrated when I see the same fight happening today. Things that I thought had been corrected. Voter suppression due to skin color or political affiliation.

So don't take it lightly. There are trails of blood and battles we can't imagine. Take it seriously, please. My vote and your vote do count for something. Don't let anyone take it from you and don't give it away by ignoring it. Celebrate it! Vote whatever way you want...but vote.