Saturday, May 31, 2008

Why Every Vote Must Count!

Today, I was watching CNN as the Democratic National Convention met to decide whether or not to include and how to distribute, the delegates from Florida and Michigan. The big controversy is a result of these states moving their primaries up, against the rules of the DNC. I'm of the opinion that it was not the people (common folk) in these states who made these changes. They were powerless in these decisions. It is not right to disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of voters. However, disenfranchised they were. There were so many blacks and women sitting at that table and I couldn't help but wonder if they had forgotten where they've come from. Althought the 15th ammendment had given blacks the right to vote, so much in society had kept them down and they were anything BUT free to vote. Is the Civil Rights movement or the voting drives of the 1960's so quickly forgotten? I should hope not! Ten of thousands of black folks risked their lives in their attempts to get every black man or woman registered to vote. People were hung, shot at, had their homes burned down by Klansman who went around burning crosses, all for one thing-the right to vote. It's a shame, that these people who are very Martin Luther King Jr.esque in their speeches on other things, couldn't remember those same ideals on such an important day as today.