Happy Birthday Dr. Reid!
You can see from his bio that it’s Dr. Reid’s 92nd birthday today. 90for90, the voter advocacy group, was started to honor him on his 90th birthday. The intent was to register 90 new voters in each precinct in Virginia, “I/4 Million for the Old Dominion”. They didn’t actually register 250,000 new voters though, over 600,000 new voters were registered before the 2016 election.
All because Dr. Reid would rather register voters than eat cake, or at least, he wants to register voters while he eats his cake.
“Each election is a dress rehearsal for the next. It’s not the money that wins the election, it’s the vote.” Dr. Reid
Wills Dahl wrote about Dr. Reid here in the Baltimore Post-Examiner. Jeff Shapiro of the Richmond Times Dispatch wrote about him here. Brie Jackson from WSLS-10 did a piece on the meet-up that VA and NC Kossacks sponsored, where they welcomed Dr. Reid.
Here’s part of our gang with Dr. Reid and his son, Dr. Fergie Reid Jr.
Markus Schmidt, in the Richmond Times Dispatch, writes a “Timeline -The history of voting rights” highlighting that “Dr. William F. Reid becomes the first black delegate in the Virginia General Assembly in 82 years.” As a Surgeon and a Marine, Dr. Reid broke a lot of barriers.
Happy Birthday to this special Marine!
DownWithTyranny! has done several articles about Dr. Reid (this one by his son, Dr. Fergie Reid Jr.), and the candidates who support 90for90. Last year for Black History Month, I wrote one that was published there.
This year the DK Fans of 90 for 90 group set out to publish 90 articles for Black History Month in honor of Dr. Reid and 90for90. Most media groups do around 4; MLK, Frederick Douglass, Booker T Washington and Rosa Parks. We wanted to do something different though, we wanted to feature unsung hero’s.
BlackHistoryMonth90for90 *
We didn’t quite get the 90 we were shooting for, we got 99! Perhaps we should wait for his 99th birthday to tell him?
On Daily Kos there are a lot of articles written about Dr. Reid and 90for90. Here, here, here, here, and here. Over 500 articles in all. We think he’s a pretty amazing old dude.
Great video’s of Dr. Reid are here.
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You can find articles about him from several publications on the news section of 90for90. They even have a special section for Daily Kos articles on the menu.
Inspired by Dr. Reid, we’ve started several groups besides DK Fans of 90for90 here on Daily Kos. We have the 50 State Strategy Project, Election Action Team, It’s Time and Virginia Elections, as well as other area groups, candidate groups, and issue groups.
Which is all to say that we really appreciate Dr. Reid, we’ve enjoyed learning at his feet, and look forward to doing so for a long time to come.
Thank you sir, for all you’ve done for us. If we can return that in any small way please don’t hesitate to let us know. In the mean time, on this day, your birthday, we’ll go out and register a few voters in your honor.
Dr. William Ferguson Reid Sr. Our unsung hero. Oh, wait, lets sing...
