Five Voting Rights Activists Speak

Earline McQueen

For
several years afterwards she drove her neighbors to the polls. “I’d do
anything I could to get people to register to vote, because it was
important to me to see my people have a voice. I was a precinct
chairperson for over twenty-five years. We went door to door and built
this precinct up until we had around two thousand people. We held
meetings at the Reid Center once a month, to keep them abreast of the
issues and the candidates.”


Now 94, she has
registered untold hundreds of people and informed them on the issues,
and she remains active today. “I still go to the precinct and vote
every election. Now I’m crippled up, so they come to the car and take
my vote because I can’t walk in there like I used to.


“The young
people just don’t see the importance of registering to vote. Some of
them do, because their parents vote. I get on the phone and encourage
them. I tell them, it’s important to be part of the system, to help
make our country better. Whatever party you belong to, do your best to
help. We need the youth so much – we older people are taking a back
seat now. People have to do much more than just vote now. We have to
pray, think right, and do right.”


Willie Mae Brown
says with finality, “Voting rights should be across the board, equal
for everybody.” She believes that not all the votes were counted in the
last two elections; there might have been discrimination based on race.
“But if more people would get out and take an interest in the voting
process, we would see a vast difference across the nation.


“We have to do
something to stimulate the interest of our young people,” Brown says.
“They don’t seem to take an interest, even though they’re the ones who
are going to be most affected in the long run. Perhaps it’s because
life has been easier for them, and they take many things for granted.
They need more awareness of the sacrifices that have been made for them
to have a voice. The curriculum in the schools used to include history,
civics; we read the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence.
They’re not teaching these things now. Knowledge is power, and we need
to understand history so we don’t repeat it. People aren’t clear on the
necessity and value of going to the polls, and they can get complacent.”


Her message to youth: “Get involved. Speak out on the issues. Go the polls and vote.”


Marvin Chambers
helped found ASCORE, which worked to desegregate Asheville and register
young people in the 1960s. He registered at age 18 and became active in
Precinct 7. Later, in Greensboro for college, he stayed involved in
registration drives and Democratic Party politics. Chambers ran
unsuccessfully for City Council in 1975, and he’s now working for Heath
Shuler’s campaign for Congress.


“We took people
in and registered them to vote, and we gave folks rides to the polls.
Sometimes people say, ‘My vote won’t count.’ I always try to relate to
them how in other countries, people don’t have the same rights we do.”


“Voting is our
most precious right,” he continues. “If you don’t express your opinion
by voting, you have no voice. People of color have fought and died for
that right.”


His family was
from South Carolina. “The Klan was strong and rights for black folk
were very limited. There were many places you couldn’t go, things you
couldn’t do. If you were caught doing something you weren’t supposed
to, your life wasn’t worth a plugged nickel.” His parents impressed on
him the importance of voting, and he has passed those values on to his
own children. “My kids all vote, and even though they’re grown and
gone, they call me and let me know that they voted.”


Like Brown,
Chambers believes that many young people take voting for granted. “We
treat our rights frivolously. There’s more apathy now than ever before.
We need to re-energize everyone, especially African Americans, about
the right to vote.”

Al Whitesides