Why Voting Rights Matter: Lessons from Selma's Joanne Bland

At this time when new laws threaten anew the equal access to the polls of people based on race, age, income, disability, and student status, let's not allow anyone to disguise these efforts as remedies for voting fraud. They're attempts to suppress votes, resonant with the same motivations that were widespread in the days of Jim Crow. We can't afford to forget how precious the right to vote and to hold elective office is in this country. We can't afford to ignore history, nor forget that people laid down their lives to protect these precious freedoms. In this compelling 3 1/2 minute testimonial about the events surrounding 1965's Bloody Sunday and the subsequent victory of the Selma to Montgomery March for Voting Rights, Joanne Bland of Selma, AL--who was 11 at the time of the events being described here, having already been arrested 13 times--describes why all of this matters. It's a difficult story to hear, but one we must all remember anew, at a time when these rights are being challenged again as never before.

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• Selma To Montgomery Marches
• Voting Rights
• Voter Suppression
• Voting Rights Act
• Democracy
• Voting
• Jim Crow