Voting is a hard-fought right that must be protected
As a newly minted nonprofit organization, the Chicago Sun-Times can no longer endorse political candidates.
That doesn’t mean we have abandoned our mission to inform readers about the candidates running for public office. While you might have disagreed with our choices in some past races, at least you knew our rationale for supporting a particular candidate.
Unfortunately, this change comes when our democracy is reeling from the rapid spread of insurrectionist ideology and political fanaticism that has resulted in acts that take us back to the dark days of violent voter intimidation.
Frankly, the images of people storming the Capitol building Jan. 6, 2021, are as etched into my brain as the horrifying scenes of two planes crashing into the twin towers on 9/11. My reaction was the same.
This is America. This can’t be happening.
And when a man who lost a race for a seat in the New Mexico statehouse is charged with arranging drive-by shootings at the homes of Democratic elected officials, our democracy is under attack.
Solomon Pena, 39, a Republican, refused to concede and claimed on social media that the November election was “rigged” even though he lost his bid in a district that was historically Democratic, the Associated Press reported.
Instead of accepting the will of the voters, Pena allegedly hired four men to shoot up the homes of his political rivals. A 10-year-old was asleep at home when the assaults occurred.
This shocking act of violence reminds me that our democracy can never be taken for granted.
After all, there’s not much difference between the suspect’s alleged fanaticism and the fanaticism of the murderers of three civil rights workers in 1964.
James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner were part of a voter registration campaign in Mississippi known as “Freedom Summer” when they were abducted and killed by members of the Ku Klux Klan.
It was a long road from 1869 — when Black men were given the right to vote — to the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that ended Jim Crow laws. Until then, Black men (decades later, Black women) had to overcome poll taxes, literacy tests and intimidation to cast a ballot.
We know the stories of Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks and Medgar Evers and the courage it took for them to fight racial segregation.
But it took just as much courage for everyday persons like the Rev. George Lee of Belzoni, Mississippi, to register to vote. Lee was murdered in 1955 for his voter registration efforts; Lamar Smith was murdered that same year for organizing Black people to vote; Herbert Lee, who worked with civil rights leader Bob Moses registering black voters, was killed in 1961, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center website.
Today, a younger generation is challenging disenfranchisement on a new front.
TO BABY BOOMERS LIKE ME, IT CAN OFTEN FEEL LIKE THE CITY, STATE — HECK, THE COUNTRY — IS GOING BACKWARD IN POLITICS. BUT WE CAN’T THROW IN THE TOWEL. AND NEITHER CAN YOU.
As noted in a recent Sun-Times op-ed by Marlon Chamberlain, campaign organizer for “Fully Free,” Illinois is one of the few states where people can vote as soon as they are released from incarceration.
Still, thousands of formerly incarcerated individuals are unaware that they can vote.
That may be changing. Jesse Webster was granted clemency in 2017 after serving 21 years of a life sentence for a drug offense.
“Do you vote?” I asked him recently.
“Yes,” he responded emphatically. “I see voting as both a right and a responsibility. If you want to have a voice, it is a right and a privilege that people fought for.”
To baby boomers like me, it can often feel like the city, state — heck, the country — is going backward in politics.
But we can’t throw in the towel. And neither can you. When the time comes, do what matters.
Vote.