Crossing the Bridge

By Jeanné Isler

In 2002, I prepared to vote for the second time in my life. The line was not the longest I’d seen, but I waited at least 45 minutes to get to the front.

“Democrat or Republican?” the woman asked me when I got to the table.

I told her my name, and explained that I was registered as an Independent. She replied, “Well this is a primary, so you can’t vote.”

I responded that I knew that there were no Independents running for office in the primary, but there was a referendum on the ballot that I wanted to vote on. I also explained that I had seen the sample ballot in the paper, so I knew that it was an option.

She disagreed. She told me I had to be either Democrat or Republican, or I couldn’t vote in this election. I conceded and said that she should just change my party affiliation so I could vote that day.

“You can’t do it here. You have to go down to the county seat and change your registration there.” The county seat was over an hour away, and I was on my lunch break. I told her that I was not going to the county seat, especially because I was sure there was an Independent ballot. She said I should go to the exceptions table to see what they could do.

I got out of line, went to the exceptions table and spoke with the head polling official. After some initial confusion, she found the Independent ballots, gave me one and instructed me to go to the front of the line so my name could be marked off. So I went back to the front of the line.

“Ma’am you’re going to have to go to the back of the line.” The woman who’d sent me to the exceptions table barely looked up as she instructed me to go to the back. I explained that I was told to come to the front to have my name checked off so I could vote. She repeated, “You have to go to the back of the line.”

Frustrated, I retorted, “The only reason I got out of line in the first place is because you didn’t know that I could vote on an Independent ballot. I’m not going to the back of the line.” We went back and forth, both defending our positions. Finally I conceded, but I insisted on having the last word. “Well, some of my ancestors died for the right to vote,” I said loudly. “The least I can do is go to the back of the line.”

This experience, along with a few other negative experiences, drastically influenced the way in which I approach voting and elections. But when making my statement in anger and frustration, I never imagined I would get to meet those who almost died defending my right to vote.

I was privileged to attend a congressional pilgrimage to commemorate the 46^th anniversary of “Bloody Sunday.” This is the 11^th time Congressman John Lewis has hosted a trip for his colleagues to remember the 1965 attempt to march from Selma to Montgomery to demand protection of voting rights, and to draw attention to unjust segregation laws. SFCG played a small role in designing the young adult component of the initiative. The marchers, led by John Lewis, were blocked from proceeding out of Selma by state troopers, and violently attacked with tear gas, beaten, and chased by horseback by an angry mob.

In addition to marching across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, the pilgrimage included numerous opportunities to hear stories, reflections, and wisdom from a wide range of Civil Rights Era leaders. Some of the stories were grim, like the events on Bloody Sunday. Some were uplifting – like the memories of how music and prayer sustained the activists even in their darkest moments. Still others were weighted with the trauma that many have been living with for the last 60 years, and are only now starting to overcome.

Throughout the weekend, it became increasingly clear that many of the institutional issues that civil rights groups addressed 60 years ago are still problems in one way or another. As we marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, a bystander shouted to the members of congress, “People here are just as poor and disenfranchised today as they were in the 60s!” His comment got lost in the wind, but I looked at the housing projects that loomed around the Historic Brown Chapel AME Church where the march started, the dilapidated and vacant buildings of downtown Selma, and heard the pleas of the staff from the National Voting Rights Museum and Institute for funding to continue their efforts, and I realized there was the truth of his words.

Some of the strategies that Civil Rights Leaders used in the 60’s can still be useful. For example, they employed a grassroots citizenship education program to help people understand their rights as citizens, and the power that comes with the ability to vote. In 2008 a little over half of the US adult population voted, and that was an increase from previous years. Because my early voting experiences were so negative, I’ve worked at polling places in every election since, save one. I’ve seen many voters who were ignorant and confused about the process, or who were not able to vote because of simple oversights; like not remembering the address they used or the county where they were registered. I have also seen people excluded from voting because of exclusionary laws, such as those that prohibit former felons or those that require several forms of identification. Some of these stipulations eerily echo the laws of the 1960s. Many of these rules disproportionately affect people of color, just as other rules did in the 1960s.

SFCG on Race is working to take a common ground approach to healing racism in the United States. Thankfully those who are working for equal voting rights today in the United States have not faced the overt violence that Congressman John Lewis and his colleagues did in the 1960s. Unfortunately some of the challenges they marched against remain in a different form. How can SFCG help a range of citizens work together across dividing lines, in a collaborative and constructive way? How can we encourage people to learn about their rights and responsibilities and to protect the rights of all citizens? It may mean reviving some of the educational work of the 1960s. But just as then, it will also mean creating something new, fit for the time and circumstances in which we find ourselves.

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Jeanné Isler is the Project Director of SFCG on Race, with Search USA. She has previously worked in community mediation and with organization such as America Speaks and Initiatives of Change on projects that include dialogues on race and trainings on cross-cultural communication skills. See what else we’re working on in Search-USA.