Michael Schwerner, James Chaney, and Andrew Goodman. When I think about the right to vote, I think about them. There are countless others, many of whose names we do not know. People in our history who have stood up, who have fought, who have died for the right to vote.
As we know, Schwerner, Chaney, and Goodman were young civil rights workers in Mississippi in the summer of 1964 who were murdered by the Ku Klux Klan for fighting for the right of African-Americans to vote. Their murders captured the attention of the nation and helped lead the way to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
We, as a nation, have traveled a distance since that Freedom Summer. But we also recognize that we have far to go. We must get out and vote on Tuesday. But we cannot stop there. We must keep organizing, keep fighting, keep agitating for justice and equality for all. For an end to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. For a country where we the people, not we the corporations, govern. For an electoral process where we all have an equal and meaningful vote and where all of our votes are properly counted. For a world where no child goes hungry. For an earth that we protect.
Michael Schwerner, James Chaney, and Andrew Goodman. When I think about how we must keep on, I think about them. We should see this Tuesday as another marker along the way in our struggle as a people to build a better country, a better world. Let it renew us. Let it remind us that the first step is to vote and that we must then take the next steps to organize for change. Vote on Tuesday and then keep fighting. The unsung heroes and heroines of our past would want nothing less.