The first person to vote in my precinct’s polling place was an elderly African American woman who had been standing in line on her cane for at least an hour. About 15 minutes before the doors opened, someone came and held her spot so that she could sit on a nearby bench to rest. When the doors finally opened at 8 am, she quickly got up and went right inside to cast her vote. We black women do not take our votes lightly.
You may ask why, in “deep red” Texas, would African Americans stand in line for hours to cast their votes in a presidential election? Don’t we realize that our votes will be cancelled by the overwhelming GOP majority? Don’t we know that the glory days of Barbara Jordan, Lloyd Bentsen, and Ann Richards are over?
Yes, we understand that we live in a state where the counties that oversee our votes, and our jails, and our criminal courts are dominated by Republicans. We know that the scourge of voter disenfranchisement got its roots when African Americans in Texas were not allowed to vote in Democratic primaries. We realize our plight when we stand in lines and confirm that we have our “voter identifications” ready to show. We know that our voter ID laws are unfair.
And yet, we vote.
While voter turnout has traditionally been low in Texas, African American women nationwide are the most consistent Democratic voters.
My mother, who passed away a year before Barack Obama was elected our nation’s first black president, was a Texas delegate for Jesse Jackson in 1984. Today, my mother-in-law, who grew up during Jim Crow in East Texas, and who suffers from bad knees after years working as a healthcare giver to others, will stand in line in Dallas County—and she will vote.
An older black woman voting is not an anomaly. Living in places like Texas, or Mississippi or North Carolina doesn’t dissuade us. We know that the stakes are too high, and we don’t believe that the price paid for our right to vote was in vain.