Bigger than us
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Editor,
As Congress deliberates voting rights, we should remind our representatives of just how bad things were in a “United” States that was segregated. I grew up, many decades ago, in Jim Crow Texas. My father was a schoolteacher with five children, but, because African Americans commanded insignificant wages, we could always afford a maid. I never knew a black person, except as a servant or laborer. Black people were not in my schools, not at church, not at gatherings, and not in my family. Lynchings were not talked about much, but they were part of life, and I remember adults talking about whether the civil rights workers somehow got what they deserved.
Today, this sounds almost too dystopian to believe. That is because of the difficult and dangerous work of the Civil Rights Movement - work that protected the right of African Americans to vote - and, in doing so, protected all of us.
Today, African American votes matter, and this group is participating in every aspect of American life. There are educators, journalists, attorneys, doctors, scientists, actors, musicians, and artists at work for the common good - and all of us are richer for it.
This is how important the vote is.
It is not something to play politics with. It is not something to limit.
It is bigger than any of us.
We need to pass the Voting Rights Legislation. If this legislation fails on our watch, we may be living in a very different world - one we may not like very much.
Gail Trenfield
St. Ignatius
