By Hannah Chang
This blog is not a rallying cry to go out and vote.
It’s trying to think about the vote. What makes it so great?
Well, for one, did you know that once a whole summer was dedicated to voting? That’s right. In the summer of 1964, hundreds of college students flocked down to Mississippi to ensure equal voting rights. It was called Freedom Summer.
These volunteers, many of whom were white Northerners, “developed a sense that [what they were doing] was purposeful.” So much so that, when it was over, they didn’t want to leave their work or the people they had developed relationships with.
But that didn’t mean that Freedom Summer was all cupcakes and rainbows. In fact, on the very first day of Freedom Summer, June 21, 1964, three members went missing. Their bodies were found later that summer. These volunteers had to go through the terror that Black Mississippians endured every day. One woman recounted, with a shaking voice, how she once had a noose put over her head and she “saw [herself] being dragged to death.”
Fannie Lou Hamer, one of the key organizers of Freedom Summer, was staunch in her belief of equal rights and voting. Perhaps her determination and courage could be seen in a short exchange with Adam Clayton Powell, a congressman from New York who urged her to compromise, to not be stubborn in advocating for the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party - a group of Black delegates who wanted to unseat the state’s White delegation in the Democratic National Convention.
To him Hamer said, “How many bales of cotton have you picked? How many beatings have you taken?”
What she really was saying was if he knew what it was like to live like a second-class citizen. She knew what life was like without the vote. She was saying that you can’t compromise when you’ve already given so much.
Powell was silenced.
These volunteers of Freedom Summer risked their lives for the vote. They dedicated their lives to the vote. Fannie Lou Hamer never compromised on the vote.
Voting is a right so sacred that it was bought for with blood. People were willing to kill to stop some from voting. And others were willing to die to vote.
Voting is a right so fought for it became peoples’ life’s purpose. They felt empty when they weren’t doing something about it.
So let’s start thinking about voting, because if people were willing to die, to devote their lives, to refuse to compromise no matter the cost, all for the vote - isn’t the vote worth our time?
Hannah studies Philosophy, Politics, and Economics and Journalism at the University of Pennsylvania. Growing up in the country of Georgia, a former-USSR nation, she has always been interested in government, history, and by extension, voting. She loves to explore these themes through writing, specifically through journalism and the media.
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