Early voting began in Houston, Texas last week, and over the past few days I have received text messages from an assortment of friends and acquaintances who have my cell phone number (about 2,400 folks have that number) with messages celebrating their vote like “I Voted” and many more versions. The one message that struck me the most was the one that came to me via a text message a few days ago saying “I voted…I Cried.” I thought for a moment that I have never in my entire life connected the act of voting with the response of tears. But these are not normal times. I reflected on what must have triggered such an emotional response, I imagined the voting booth and what must have gone through my friend’s mind the moment the ballot was cast but I still thought to my self “what an extreme emotional response for such a routine act.” It was time for my own experience on Sunday afternoon so I stopped at an early voting place in my neighborhood, got in a line of voters about a quarter mile long, inched along for about an hour, walked through the certification process, step up to the new fangled voting booth and scrolled through the long list of candidates and pressed the big red button marked “cast”. I voted… then I cried.
I cried as I reflected on the sacrifices made by countless men and women of all races for the right to vote in America. A right that came to pass in spite of barking dogs, water hoses, nightsticks and armed militias.
I cried as I recalled the murder of voting-rights activists in Philadelphia, Mississippi, and the unprovoked attack on March 7, 1965, by state troopers on peaceful marchers crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama that ultimately led to the Voting Rights Act.
I cried as I remembered my Auntie Mae Mae’s commitment to the right to vote as she and her friends stood on street corners campaigning for their candidate of choice ultimately managing elections at “colored only” polling places under the close scrutiny of poll watchers.
I cried as I thought about the power my mother most have experienced in the old days when the thick heavy curtain of vintage voting booths closed around her, protecting her privacy as she picked me up allowing me to turn the levers for her candidates of choice giving me my first glimpse of what freedom really meant in America.
I cried some more as I reflected on a recent phone call from my two daughters who shared their youthful enthusiasm regarding participating in this years election.
And finally, I cried because my dad loved the political process but died four years ago on the 4th of July before having an opportunity see, discuss, experience, debate, curse, complain, and vote in this years monumental election.
I had an experience with inequality when I was nine years old that left a large scar on my spirit until now. On last Sunday I voted and that scar began to heal.
