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Rev. Moya Harris writes that voter suppression has again taken hold — but she refuses to lose:
I proudly share the legacy of generations of people who fought to be respected as full citizens in America. I am the granddaughter of Mississippi sharecroppers. My parents picked cotton growing up, sometimes missing school to ensure the family could make ends meet. My parents left Mississippi in the late 1960s after college, having never voted. I know too well about voter suppression and the horrors of Jim Crow. The fundamental right to vote is close to my heart; it’s personal. My generation was the first in my family born with full voting rights. I never thought the precious right to vote would be jeopardized in 2024. Yet, because the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act in 2013, the right of full and safe access to the ballot box is again impeded. Voter suppression has again taken hold as a tactic for dismantling democracy. The ghost of Jim Crow keeps on haunting. In the words of the great theologian and rapper Chuck D, “I got so much trouble on my mind, refuse to lose.” Those lyrics from “Welcome to the Terrordome” are permanently on my lips. The continued onslaught of racialized policing, the challenge against anything considered “diverse,” and the attack of new voter suppression laws since the 2020 election have put these lyrics on repeat. Voters in 28 states will face restrictions this November that weren’t in place in the last presidential election, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. Increasingly violent rhetoric and events throughout the 2024 campaign season also have given voters credible concerns about intimidation at the polls. It is evident that the “fierce urgency of now,” as Martin Luther King Jr. put it, compels us not only to protect the right to vote but to actively nurture and support the democratic lives of all communities during this critical election period, especially those who live with their backs against the wall.
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