Tomorrow is election day. By now you have been bombarded with campaign ads by email, television, and social media. Even with all this attention, it is estimated that less than half of eligible voters will participate in this year’s mid-term elections. It is easy to take the right to vote for granted. Yet on this day before the elections, I want to remind us not only to vote but to remember those who paid the cost to extend voting rights to all citizens of our nation. It has only been 53 years since the Voting Rights Act of 1965 made it possible to vote for many people who had been denied that right for decades due to racial discrimination and injustice. Even today we continue to see efforts to suppress the right to vote that target people of color. Among the many struggles for voting rights, perhaps the most famous is what became known as “Bloody Sunday.” On March 7, 1965 peaceful protestors were viciously attacked by Alabama state troopers as they crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma. They were part of a campaign in Selma to secure voting rights regardless of race or economic status. The video posted below is actual footage of the attack on Bloody Sunday. Please take the time to view it so that when we vote tomorrow, we will not only exercise your own right to vote, We will also remember and give thanks for those who came before us and paid the price to make voting more fair and just. We are also part of the ongoing struggle for justice to insure that the right to vote is not manipulated or suppressed.
