“There is no more vital right in a democracy than the right to vote. Without it, no other right is secure.”
These are the words of Lawrence Goldstone, author of “Stolen Justice: The Struggle for African American Voting Rights” (Scholastic Focus: New York, 2020). This invaluable book should be required reading for all who are currently in the struggle for voting rights because people not only need to know what they are fighting for, but, they equally need to know about whom they are fighting against. Many people in the struggle for voting rights get so caught up in the here and now that they lose sight of the events that lead to the here and now. In other words, in order to fully understand disenfranchisement today, one must fully understand the historical mindset of those who made it their generational mission to disenfranchise African Americans, and to understand how each generation has it’s own methods by which it use’s to achieve that mission.
The methods used are well documented, but, many today are unaware of the magnitude of those methods, and how those methods brought the American voting system to the brink of collapse.
In 1890, J. J. Chrisman, a Mississippian judge, took pride in declaring: “In plan words, we have been stuffing the ballot boxes, committing perjury, and here and there . . . carrying the elections by fraud and violence until the whole machinery for elections was about to rot down.”
Malcolm X once said: “As time changes, your methods for achieving your objectives must change.”
Mr. Goldstone informs us that by 1900, all of the old Confederate States were in agreement that the time had come to change their methods in by which to deny African Americans the full and equal right of citizenship. He quotes an Alabama lawmaker as saying: “We cannot afford to live with our feet upon fraud. We will not do it. We have disfranchised the African in the past by doubtful methods, but in the future we will do so by law.”
The political events taking place throughout America today are the methods employed more than a hundred years ago by those seeking to continue the course of disenfranchisement.
I have been incarcerated for the past 33 years, and like so many incarcerated men and women, there was a time when I believed that politics (particularly voting) was a waste of time. Thankfully I have matured in my historical and political understanding when it comes to voting. When we do not vote, or at least participate in the process in some way, we become accomplice’s in our own disenfranchisement.
I am currently employed by the Virginia Correctional Enterprise (VCE) where we print letterheads, pamphlets, brochures, businesses cards, and other stationary for State institutions, colleges and universities and nonprofits throughout the State. VCE also supplies the State with it’s Voter Registration Applications. Due to my status as a convicted felon, I can’t vote. However, I find comfort and satisfaction in doing something that helps others in registering to vote. It gives me a sense of inclusiveness and a sense of pride because I feel like I’m a part of the process. Also, I feel like I’m keeping Dr. King’s dream alive when he said:
“Everybody can be great . . . because anybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.”
In closing, I want to leave you with this food for thought:
All of your rights and all of your privileges, as an American citizen, are contained in your right to vote. To forgo or relinquish that right puts all of your rights and privileges in jeopardy. We in the present owe a debt to all who fought for the cause of suffrage in the past. Let us not be unmindful of that obligation. Let us not let their suffering be in vain.
Peace and Blessings to all.
Anthony Maurice Jordan #1161827
Beaumont Correctional Center
Brilliance Behind Bars 