Vote With A Conscious And A Purpose In 2020
We as Black Americans have sacrificed way too much in this nation’s history not to participate in the right to place a vote in the ballot box. We heard Malcolm’s question related to the choice of either the ballot or the bullet. Yet our ancestors understood that in reality those bullets being shot were aimed at them simply because they desired the right of citizenship promised in 1870. Our ancestors weren't doing the shooting they were ducking and diving from those murderous white mobs. Far too long the battle to reach full citizenship in the United States has been determined by white mob violence. Far too long the battle to reach full citizenship has been determined by white legislators who controlled the ballot boxes and thus mandated the lack of growth in black communities. Far too long the federal, state, and municipal courts has judicially ruled to the benefit of only protecting those white institutions of white oppression. Our ancestors faced unbelievable odds in these United States. States that was seemingly only united in their efforts to oppress, suppress, malign, torture, and murder them. Why, were this tactics so common? Because the main objective was to silence any voices of change intent on erasing racial oppression.
Our ancestors were being hung on trees, burned alive, murdered, humiliated, savagely beaten because the sought rights ceded to them by the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments. From Wilmington to Charleston, Rosewood to Greenwood, East St. Louis to Houston, Cambridge to Chicago, Birmingham to Jackson, Detroit to Harlem, Newark to Watts, Atlanta to Orlando, Montgomery to Memphis, Ferguson to Baltimore, Minneapolis to North Charleston from Reconstruction’s end to Tuesday’s vote, all of those Black Americans who can vote must vote. Our ancestors had to survive the Crow’s Jim and Jane who instilled racial hate of those of the colored race and sought to destroy black hope and black growth. Our ancestors lost so much from 1789’s decree of 3/5 of person but 5/5 property. Our ancestor’s faced the Chief Justice Taney’s 1858 judicial edict that enforced the creed of white superiority. Only seven years after getting the vote a compromise snatched that promise of true citizenship away. Our ancestors faced another judicial decree in 1896 that instilled almost 75 years of constant pain and none of humanities restrain. They knew separate would never be equal even if the law determined otherwise. So gleeful was the May 17, 1954 Brown vs Board Of Education decree that our communities would finally be lifted up. Yet, the lift came with only more broken promises and legislative avoidance. Our ancestors build this nation, our ancestors saved this nation, our ancestors died on foreign shores for this nation, our ancestors gave this nation the gift of voice, so yes my brothers and sisters when 2020 whether it be primary or general election comes we have no choice but to vote! Let’s no longer vote the best of two terrible candidates. Let’s force the candidate we choose to elevate to our demands rather than us stooping down to their broken promises.