Every generation of Black Americans has been told, in one way or another, that its vote does not count. Every generation has voted anyway. Three paintings tell that story, and each one ends at the same place: the polls.
Voting under Jim Crow
The Fifteenth Amendment promised the vote in 1870. By 1910, Southern states had taken it back with poll taxes, literacy tests, white primaries, and terror. Black men and, after 1920, Black women still organized. Clubwomen, churches and the NAACP paid poll taxes for neighbors, ran citizenship schools, and filed the lawsuits that struck down the white primary in Smith v. Allwright (1944). The vote was rare, but it was never surrendered.
Selma, Freedom Summer, and the 1965 law
In 1964, fewer than 7 percent of eligible Black Mississippians were registered to vote. That summer, hundreds of volunteers joined SNCC and local leaders such as Fannie Lou Hamer to register voters door to door. Three of them, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, were murdered in Neshoba County.
On March 7, 1965, state troopers beat peaceful marchers on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. The nation watched "Bloody Sunday" on television. Five months later, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act. Within a few years, Black registration in Mississippi rose to about 60 percent. Section 2 of the law, which bars voting rules that dilute minority votes, became the foundation for the Black-majority districts that sent a generation of Black lawmakers to Congress.
After Callais
This year, in Louisiana v. Callais, the Supreme Court weakened Section 2 and opened the door for states to dismantle districts that give Black voters a fair chance to elect their candidates. It came on top of years of new ID rules, purged voter rolls, closed polling places, and false claims of fraud.
Young people are answering the way their grandparents did. Students in Greensboro marched to the polls. Black candidates such as Justin Pearson are running on redrawn maps. Campus groups are driving voters to early-voting sites and helping first-time voters find their polling places.
The backlash is already visible. In an Oct. 29 segment for Mother Jones's Stress Test, Garrison Hayes argued that Callais has backfired on its supporters: instead of discouraging Black voters, it is driving a surge in Black turnout across the South. (Watch the clip)
The early numbers back him up. In Louisiana, Black voters made up 34.4% of early voters through Oct. 28, according to Secretary of State figures reported by The Times-Picayune, though they are 31.3% of the state's registered electorate. In Georgia, more than 2 million people had voted early by Oct. 27, with turnout running higher in metro Atlanta than at the same point in past elections, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. Early-vote data is incomplete, and some states, including Mississippi and Alabama, do not report it by race. But the direction is clear.
Voting-rights advocates warn the stakes reach beyond this election. "For the first time since the Voting Rights Act was passed in the 1960s, we have millions of Americans headed to the polls without clear federal protections to enforce voting rights," Rebekah Caruthers, the CEO of the Fair Elections Center, told The Nation. She warned that the threats could fall hardest on young voters — nearly 50 million Americans between the ages of 18 and 29 are eligible to vote this month.
Courtrooms, campuses and early lines
The pushback is taking shape on the ground. On Tuesday, Oct. 27, voting-rights advocates and community members packed the Tom Stagg Federal Courthouse in Shreveport, Louisiana, for an Early Voting Day of Action organized with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, defending a majority-Black congressional district threatened after Callais.
On campuses, students are answering with plans. Howard University's "Bison Vote" campaign is circulating the dates that matter in the region: early voting in Washington, D.C., runs Oct. 26 to Nov. 1; Maryland's ran Oct. 22 to 29; Virginia's runs through Oct. 31. Election Day is Nov. 3, and vote.gov lists the rules for every state.
Young Black women are carrying their own stakes to the polls. College students interviewed by The 19th said jobs, affordability and an uncertain life after graduation top their concerns this year. "I want to feel hopeful," one told the newsroom.
The painter Cassandra M. Gillens has captured that patience in her scenes of Black voters lined up outside a country polling place: dressed for the occasion, waiting their turn, refusing to be turned away.
Your turn
The people in these paintings faced poll taxes, billy clubs and gerrymanders. They voted anyway. Check your registration, make a plan, bring the right ID, and take someone with you. If you are turned away, ask for a provisional ballot and call the Election Protection hotline at 866-OUR-VOTE (866-687-8683).
Vote anyway.
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