The kind who save democracy

On Feb. 15, 1965, the Rev. C.T. Vivian led a group of prospective Black voters from Brown AME Church to the Dallas County Courthouse in Selma, Ala. On the steps, they were stopped by Sheriff Jim Clark.

Vivian, one of the giants of the civil rights movement, jawed back and forth with the burly lawman, saying they were citizens who had a right to register to vote. When Clark turned his back on him, Vivian responded, “You can turn your back on me, but you cannot turn your back on the idea of justice.”

Turning around, Clark hit Vivian in the face with a left punch, sending the reverend to the ground. Undeterred, Vivian, now bleeding, stood up and said, “What kind of people do they think we are? What kind of people are you? We are willing to die for democracy.”

The Selma campaign would sacrifice more martyrs in the fight for the vote. In the next six weeks, “Bloody Sunday” and the Selma-Montgomery March would be bracketed by the murders of Jimmie Lee Jackson, the Rev. James Reeb and Viola Liuzzo. All these sacrifices led to President Lyndon B. Johnson signing the Voting Rights Act on Aug. 6, 1965.

In 2022, two days away from Election Day, millions of Americans are prepared to turn their backs on democracy by refusing to accept election outcomes they don’t like. Some losing candidates won’t concede, and their followers will try to overturn the results.

Across the country, election workers have been intimidated into quitting their low-paying but indispensable jobs. Those still working are familiar with the terror visited on motherdaughter election workers Lady Ruby and Shaye Moss of Georgia.

Armed, self-designated election integrity watchers, strangers to the areas they’re “patrolling,” will hover as close as possible over polling sites as people exercise their right to vote, earned in Lexington and Concord, Seneca Falls, Gettysburg and Selma.

Our democracy is in peril because of one lie, said over and over by one man, former President Donald Trump. He lost the 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden by 7 million votes, but he lied that it was stolen. A lie that incited the Jan. 6 insurrection. A lie preceded by other lies.

When U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz beat Trump in the 2016 Iowa caucuses, Trump lied and accused him of cheating.

In an August 2016 campaign rally in Columbus, Ohio,

Trump began lying that the election was “rigged” in favor of Hillary Clinton. In their last debate, he refused to say he’d concede the election if he lost, and he did the same in 2020.

Choosing to place the vanities of one man over what’s best for our country, more than 300 candidates on ballots across the nation also are election deniers. Democracy is on the ballot because if they win, they will no more respect the electoral will of the people than their inciter in chief.

In life, sports and politics, we’re told to play by the rules, respect the outcome and not to be a sore loser. To be competitive, put more talent on the field, have a better playbook, prepare a better game plan.

Obliterating the rules and saying the only fair outcome is the one in which you win is wrong and undemocratic.

This democracy isn’t perfect, but it belongs to each of us, and it’s something we must cherish, protect, fight for and participate in with our votes. John Lewis, who saw a multiracial democracy on the other side of the Edmund Pettus Bridge said, “The vote is precious, it is almost sacred. It is the most powerful nonviolent tool we have in a democratic society. And we have to use it.”

Democracy isn’t defined by those who would destroy it. It’s larger than fidelity to one man’s pathologies.

In the U.S., democracy is defined by those who imagined it, held it together when it was coming apart, expanded it and breathed new life into it. Democracy is defined by those who participate and invest in it with their virtues. Former President James Madison wrote, “To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea.”

C.T. Vivian asked, “What kind of people do they think we are?”

People who have died for democracy and refuse to let democracy die. People who understand that more important than your party winning is democracy not losing.

Vivian