I’ll never forget the day my husband glibly informed my grandfather that not only had he never voted, his parents never did and that in all honesty, he didn’t really see the importance of it. Now, I have always had a sense of humor about most things, but the incredulous, silently outraged and insulted look my saint of a grandfather (who would go on to receive the Congressional Gold Medal for his work in the engineering and ground crew of the Tuskegee Airmen) gave me in that moment cut me to the core.
Ugh. It was an awful thing to say for so many reasons. At that particular time, in that excruciatingly mortifying moment, I was a new, very young wife in our family’s first “out and proud” interracial relationship on one of our first trips to visit my family back home in Mississippi. And in Josh’s defense he was only eligible to vote in one previous national election. He’d always loved my nerdy obsession with politics and he wasn’t opposed to voting. It’s just that no one close to him had taught him any better. I figured I’d walk him through getting registered at some point and that he’d be exercising his franchise in no time. But after our wedding, I had so many other priorities. Honestly, I was just glad that everyone finally accepted my white husband and made an effort to welcome him into the family.
But that withering look that my Grandpa gave me over the top of his morning newspaper will stay with me forever. And he didn’t have to say a word to make his point: too many people had died for anyone to take their right to vote for granted. My grandfather was the kindest, most loving and gentle man I’ve ever known, but he was absolutely justified in having such a hardline opinion about this.
My grandparents were Black educators during the bloody, tumultuous years known as the Civil Rights Era. Their own children were a part of the first wave of students who themselves helped integrate public schools in rural Mississippi. My father was one of the first Black law students to graduate from Ole Miss School of Law. He met and wooed my mother on a law school recruiting trip at the University of Southern Mississippi. Mom was a Dean’s list student who idolized Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall and dreamed of a becoming a lawyer herself. And she ended up knocking that one out of the park. She earned her law degree and was elected Justice Court Judge before I celebrated my tenth birthday.
This all sounds fine and well now, but I can only guess the challenges, fears and humiliations that my parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles must have suffered and the courage they had to muster just to do their jobs as black educators and students in southern Mississippi at that time. Can you imagine the pressure? Watching TV at night as a child, my mother saw civil rights leaders slain, little Black girls blown up in churches, and grown white men and women spitting and screaming in the faces of children who were just trying to go to school.
Although I’m guessing my Mom snuck in a little fun here and there, let it suffice to say that in my family, few things were more fundamentally valued than education and our collective and individual responsibility as citizens to vote. Why? Because people had been beaten, raped, murdered for either attempting to vote or leading efforts to register black Mississippians to vote. And the seriousness and importance of the issue was passed down directly to me and my sisters.
But you know what? You don’t have to have some long, dramatic narrative or painful family stories about voting in order to take pride and feel the importance of it.
One of the main goals of Heart of the Village is to help each and every one of you create and sustain your own social justice practice. Voting in our local, state and national elections is crucial to that practice. And the best part? It’s easy! Whether this is your first time voting or your fiftieth, we want you to do it up this year! Most of you know how very much is at stake this election. So all of us here at HOTV challenge you to go big! Involve your spouse—you can make a date of it. Talk about Election Day with the kids, point out your local polling place the next time you drive by it. We don’t care how you do it, just so long as you make a plan to vote!
I personally encourage you to be borderline obnoxious about it. Talk about your voting plan at every socially distant book club, dinner party and Zoom & Sip you attend between now and November 3rd. If your friends don’t have a plan to vote, they can just cut and paste yours. If the “I VOTED” stickers aren’t exciting enough for you, make t-shirts, snap a selfie in it on Election Day and send it to us. We’ll put it up on the HOTV Instagram page. Never voted before? Not even registered, you say? Just hit this link and register right now.
Stressed about COVID-19 and want to vote by mail? Excellent! If you live in California, Governor Newsom’s Executive Order N-64-20 has already hooked you up. All Californians will receive a vote-by-mail ballot. See? It’s meant to be.
And now, twenty four years later, Josh just might be the most politically active and motivated person in our house. I knew, in the run up to the 2018 midterms, when he couldn't make up his mind about which out-of-state House fundraiser we should attend, that I had a real live convert on my hands. He’s a historian, and I think there was something about casting his vote for our first Black president and watching him take office that permanently changed his thinking about the significance of his vote.
It’s one thing to study, talk and write about history. Casting your vote in order to shape history is something altogether different. We're both grateful beyond measure that my grandfather lived to see it.
Yours in soul, power and love,
Halicue