Content warning: This email discusses anti-Black violence. If this is too much to read, we understand. Take care of yourself first and foremost.
This Black History Month, I want to tell you the story of Maceo Snipes.
Snipes fought fascists during World War II. Upon returning, he was determined to vote as an American citizen, unintimidated by threats against the lives of African Americans in his native Georgia.
So in 1946, he voted — and was the only Black person in Taylor County, Georgia, who dared to do so. A few days later, a firing squad arrived at his door and pumped his body full of bullets.
The message was really clear: You vote, you die.
That kind of physical violence is what may come to mind when thinking about voter suppression and disenfranchisement in the past.
But it is the bureaucratic violence that now rains down in terms of policies and court cases that look legitimate in ways that the execution of Maceo Snipes could not.
The voter suppression laws passed today are as subtle and as vicious as the Jim Crow laws that came up in the 1890s and the early 20th century.
They aren’t haphazard, one-offs, or innocuous. Indeed, they’re following an old formula that has been designed and refined over the course of more than a century to shrink and whiten the electorate.
We're living through Jim Crow 2.0.
Since the 2020 election, more than 1,300 restrictive voting bills have been introduced in state legislatures across the country. The forces that work to silence Black voices and undermine our democracy may be strong — but together, we are stronger.
So, while we celebrate the stories of Black achievement, Black joy, and Black changemakers like Maceo Snipes this Black History Month, we must also recommit ourselves to the fight for a stronger and more inclusive democracy.
I hope you’ll join me.
In Solidarity,
Professor Carol Anderson
Fair Fight Action Board Member
Author of One Person, No Vote
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