In the coming months, you will be told the 2024 Election is the most consequential election since, well, the last presidential election. The hype notwithstanding, the right to vote is the right that secures all other rights. If voting didn’t matter, conservatives would not try to block access to the ballot box.
National Voter Registration Day, the country’s largest single-day voter registration drive, is September 19, 2023. Since 2012, more than five million Americans have been registered to vote on this civic holiday.
Your vote matters. You can register to vote here. If you are already registered, check your status to make sure you are #VoteReady. And on Election Day, be careful how you vote.
Thousands gathered in the nation’s capitol to mark the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Organizers said the march was “not a commemoration, but a continuation” of the work of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
The march was convened by Rev. Al Sharpton, founder and president of the National Action Network and Martin Luther King III, board chairman of the Drum Major Institute. Co-Chairs include the NAACP, Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, National Coalition on Black Civic Participation and the National Urban League.
To commemorate the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture has on display the original three-page “I Have a Dream” speech that Dr. King delivered on August 28, 1963. NMAAHC Director Kevin Young said:
The words of all its speakers resonate six decades later, and we serve as witnesses to the bravery and dedication of its organizers. To be able to show visitors the copy of the “I Have a Dream” speech King read and improvised from while at the podium is an honor and privilege.
Dr. King’s speech will be on display until September 18, 2023 in NMAAHC’s Defending Freedom, Defining Freedom: The Era of Segregation 1876–1968 Gallery.
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.
March is Women’s History Month. The Bible says a woman’s hair is her crown and glory. But for Black women, their natural hair is vilified. The current debate over natural hair has its roots in slavery. First enacted in 1786, Tignon laws forced free and enslaved Black women to cover their hair.
Fast forward to today, Black hair is still policed. Black people face discrimination and micro-aggressions because of the hair that grows naturally from their head and how they choose to style it.
One of the earliest challenges to modern Tignon customs happened in 1987. Cheryl Tatum was a cashier at Hyatt Regency Crystal City in Virginia. The personnel director, Betty McDermott, told Tatum to unbraid her hair because company policy banned “extreme and unusual hair styles.” McDermott said:
I can't understand why you would want to wear your hair like that anyway. What would the guests think if we allowed you all to wear your hair like that?
Afros are protected under the Civil Rights Act. But if a Black woman wore a regal updo, she could face hair discrimination in all but eight states.
Viewed through the white gaze, natural hair is considered “unkempt” and “unprofessional.” But it’s not just Black women. Black men and Black children also face hair discrimination. A Black teenager was told to cut his dreadlocks or forfeit a wrestling match.
Beyoncé won 2021 Grammy for Best R&B Performance for “Black Parade.” A Black woman or girl could face hair discrimination for wearing the natural hair styles depicted in her music video.
Black voters delivered the White House and the Senate majority to Democrats. They should deliver for Black people and end hair discrimination by passing the CROWN Act, Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair.
I am a longtime voting rights advocate. Under the auspices of the National Endowment for Democracy, I monitored elections in Ethiopia and Nigeria, and led voter education workshops in Angola and Kazakhstan. The American democracy is the gold standard for free and fair elections. As votes are counted in the 2020 presidential election, it feels like déjà vu.
When the polls closed in the 2000 presidential election, the race between Al Gore and George W. Bush was too close to call. The winner would be determined by Florida’s electoral votes. For 36 days, the streets were filled with protesters chanting “Count Every Vote” and “Stop the Count.” At the same time in the suites, partisans on both sides were filing lawsuits. Gore asked for hand recounts in Democratic-leaning counties only. Bush took his case all the way to the United States Supreme Court. In a 7-2 decision, the Supreme Court stopped the recounts on the grounds they violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. With that decision, Bush won Florida by a margin of 537 votes out of six million cast.
Punch card voting machines have since been replaced by electronic voting machines. But then as now, the perceived loser is cherry-picking election results. President Donald Trump is challenging the vote count in selected states. Then as now Roger Stone is engaged in dirty tricks. Also then as now, partisans are spreading conspiracy theories. As in 2000, the absence of evidence of a conspiracy to “steal the election” is evidence of the conspiracy.
Trump’s baseless claims of “vote tabulation irregularities” undermine confidence in the integrity of the election. The machinery of our democracy has changed over the years. For instance, in 2000 I cast my vote on an 800-pound lever voting machine in Brooklyn. Now living in Philadelphia, I voted by mail and tracked my ballot status online. What remains unchanged is that public trust in the electoral process separates the American republic from, say, a banana republic.
Since 1989, The Carter Center, founded by former president Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn Carter, has monitored more than 110 elections in Africa, Latin America and Asia. For the first time, the Carter Center will monitor a U.S. election. CEO Paige Alexander said in a statement:
What we’re monitoring is what many people have been calling the hand recount. Because the margin in the presidential race is so close, this sort of audit essentially requires review of every ballot by hand. This is unusual, but it provides an opportunity to build trust in the electoral system prior to the state’s certification of results.
Voter trust is the bedrock of our democracy. The 2020 presidential election is yet another reminder that the right to vote and to have that vote counted cannot be taken for granted. As Pennsylvania and other states certify the election results, the whole world will be watching.
BET and its partners launched #ReclaimYourVote, a voter education and voter mobilization campaign:
This year-long, nonpartisan campaign -- #ReclaimYourVote -- will galvanize our community by educating, engaging and empowering action. BET will execute a high-energy campaign that lays out the biggest issues, breaks down otherwise confusing processes and highlights specific ways we can reclaim our collective power.
To register to vote, check your registration, locate your polling place, or information about vote by mail or early voting options in your state, visit vote.org.
As of this writing, Election Day is 51 days away. Get ready, y’all.
