Political Action

57 years after the Voting Rights Act, blacks in Alabama constitute a voting majority in the Democratic electorate. 57 years after the Voting Rights Act, nearly 86% of Alabama blacks of voting age are registered voters. Indeed, because ADC has always affirmed that black lives matter, our state has more black elected officials per capita than any other state in the nation.

This would probably not be so if activists in Dallas and Perry Counties had not taken a stand in 1965, marched and demonstrated that Jimmie Lee Jackson’s life mattered after he was killed by a state trooper during a voting rights march. Consequently, the decision to launch a protest march from Selma to Montgomery on March 7, 1965, and the violence that ensued initiated by law enforcement, were the catalysts that caused President Lyndon Johnson and the U. S. Congress to enact a landmark Voting Rights Act.

Without question, the black lives of those original Bloody Sunday foot-soldiers has mattered much after 57 years.

Without question, the black lives of the Selma foot-soldiers are responsible in part for Barack Obama becoming President and for millions of American lives today having affordable health insurance.

More recently, their lives and march mattered by inspiring voters in Baltimore to elect a young, Tuskegee University-educated state prosecutor to bring charges against police officers in Freddie Gray’s death. Yes, after 57 years of voting rights, ADC finds it heart-warming to see two high profile elected officials like former President Obama and Prosecutor Mosby in Baltimore demonstrating to the nation boldly, that all lives matter, including blacks.

The challenge going forward is for ADC and other organizations to continue to advocate and educate voters on the importance of black lives showing up and voting in record numbers on election days, just as they show up en masse in the streets after a police incident. Peace and Power.