The First Sign I Ever Carried

The First Sign I Ever Carried

by | May 26, 2026 | Start Here, Voting Rights

Norfolk, Virginia, 1961. I am on the right, age twelve, holding my first protest sign, standing beside Rowena Warren Stancil during a demonstration at Foreman Field.

Every so often, a photograph reminds us not just of where we were, but of who we were becoming. This is the story behind one such photo — and the first time I ever carried a protest sign.

There is a photograph of me at twelve years old standing beside my mother’s friend, Rowena Warren Stancil. We are holding protest signs next to a bus. Hers reads, “$50,000 Reward for the First Black Kiwanian in Norfolk.” Mine says, “In War We Fight Together. Why Not Sit Together in Peace?”

I am young, neatly dressed, and serious. I did not know then that this small moment would become one of the clearest markers of who I was becoming.

The protest took place in 1961 at Foreman Field, on the local campus of the College of William and Mary in Norfolk. Every year before football season, the Kiwanis Club sponsored an exhibition game there between the Washington Redskins and the Baltimore Colts.

That year, Mama and several of her friends decided to protest the game for three reasons. First, the seating in the stands was segregated. Second, the Washington Redskins—alone among NFL teams at the time—refused to hire Black players. And third, the Kiwanis Club itself was an all-white organization, yet this event was being held in a state-supported facility.

The Colts made it known they would not play if the seating remained segregated. The NAACP met with Colts management and, after being assured that the stands would not include a “colored” section, announced that it would not support a demonstration at the event.

But not everyone believed the issue was settled.

Joe Jordan, Ed Dawley, and Len Holt believed that making a fuss was still necessary. They printed flyers announcing a protest and, in a move that was both bold and controversial, put the name and phone number of the NAACP president, Robert D. Robertson, on the flyer and told people to call him. Robertson responded by getting an injunction to stop the flyers from being distributed.

Mama did not believe that an injunction or polite assurances meant the deeper problems had been solved. She brought my sisters and me to the protest anyway.

That day, at twelve years old, I carried a sign for the first time.

I did not fully understand all the politics or the negotiations happening behind the scenes. But I understood something simpler and more important: things were not fair, and grown people I respected were willing to stand in public and say so.

Miss Rowena stood beside me holding her sign about the Kiwanis Club. I held mine about war and peace. The words had been chosen carefully. They were not angry words. They were moral words. They asked a question that did not need much explaining.

Before the game, two Black players from the Colts—Lenny Moore and Johnny Sample—came out to talk to us while we were protesting. That mattered. They did not have to do that. They acknowledged us. Then they went back inside and helped the Colts trample the Redskins, 41–7.

It would take many years for me to fully understand how much courage it took for my mother and her friends to do what they did, and how much pressure surrounded even small acts of protest in those days.

No one paid us to be there. No one paid my mother. No one paid Miss Rowena. No one paid the people who stood and handed out flyers or held signs or took the risk of being seen. THEN AND NOW, PEOPLE DEMONSTRATE BECAUSE THEY CARE, NOT BECAUSE SOMEONE IS HANDING THEM MONEY.

We were there because we believed that citizenship meant participation, and that silence was a kind of consent.

I am 77 years old now. That was my first protest, but it was not my last. It was the beginning of a lifetime of believing that ordinary people have both the right and the responsibility to stand up in public for what is right—even when it is uncomfortable, even when it is inconvenient, even when powerful institutions say the problem has already been solved.

When people today talk about protest as if it is something un-American, I think about that photograph. I think about a twelve-year-old girl holding a sign that asked a simple, honest question.

And I think about how this country itself was born not from quiet agreement, but from people who were willing to make a fuss.

If you have a memory of the first time you stood up for something you believed in, I’d love to hear it in the comments.

I Lived Through the Shift

I Lived Through the Shift

by | May 24, 2026 | Voting Rights

I have been thinking deeply about the conversations happening inside the Democratic Party and how much of it connects to changes I have witnessed during my lifetime. This is a personal reflection from someone who lived through the Civil Rights era and watched the political realignment that followed.

For many Americans, the political realignment that followed the Civil Rights era is something they learned about in school or read about years later. For me, it unfolded in real time.

I was born into Jim Crow America. I grew up in a country where segregation was legal and opportunities were unequal by design. Black families understood clearly that rights could be restricted, delayed, or denied altogether. In my family, civil rights were never abstract political debates. They shaped everyday life.

I remember the protests. I remember the tension people carried. I remember hearing adults talk about politics not as entertainment, but as something tied directly to whether you could vote, find decent work, or simply be treated fairly.

When the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 became law, they changed the country in ways that still shape us today. Those laws were necessary and long overdue, but they also accelerated a political transformation that many Americans are still trying to understand.

When I was young, many white Southern conservatives were still Democrats, even while opposing civil rights reforms. The Democratic Party was a complicated coalition that included people with completely different views on race and equality. But after national Democrats embraced civil rights legislation, many white Southern voters slowly began leaving the party. Over time, many found a political home in the Republican Party, especially as cultural resentment, religion, and fears about social change became stronger forces in American politics.

At the same time, Black Americans increasingly aligned themselves with Democrats because the party, despite its flaws and internal disagreements, had become more associated with protecting voting rights and expanding civil rights protections.

But the shift was never only about race.

As the years passed, the Democratic Party also became more closely associated with women’s rights, reproductive freedom, workplace equality, LGBTQ rights, and broader cultural changes happening across the country. Republicans, meanwhile, increasingly presented themselves as defenders of traditional culture, religion, and small-town identity.

I do not believe Democrats lost support in parts of rural America or the South because equal rights for women were wrong. Women deserved equal opportunity, equal protection under the law, and the ability to make decisions about their own lives. But I do believe many culturally conservative voters began feeling that the Democratic Party no longer reflected their communities, values, or way of life.

Over time, politics stopped being only about economics or government programs. Identity, religion, culture, and belonging became just as powerful in shaping how people voted and where they felt politically at home.

Today, I hear many Democrats discussing how to reconnect with working-class voters, rural communities, and Middle America. I understand why those conversations are happening. A political party cannot remain competitive if it loses the ability to connect with large parts of the country.

But I also carry another concern.

I worry about what lessons some leaders may take from recent election losses.

Will the party begin to view civil rights, diversity, inclusion, or women’s rights as political liabilities instead of moral commitments? Will some conclude that the very groups who became central to the modern Democratic coalition are now somehow expendable? Will efforts to regain culturally conservative voters come at the expense of people who spent generations fighting simply to be treated as full participants in American democracy?

Those questions matter deeply to me because I have lived long enough to know that progress can move backward.

I remember poll taxes. I remember segregated schools. I remember a time when Black Americans were told to wait patiently for rights that others already enjoyed. I remember when women had fewer protections, fewer opportunities, and fewer choices about their own lives.

None of those changes happened automatically. People organized, marched, spoke out, and pushed this country to live up to its promises. Some lost jobs. Some lost relationships. Some lost their safety. Some lost their lives.

That history is why I become uneasy when conversations about civil rights or women’s rights are reduced to electoral strategy or “messaging problems.”

At the same time, I do not believe Democrats can afford to dismiss the frustrations of rural or working-class Americans either. Most people want to feel respected. They want to feel seen. They want to believe there is still a place for them and their communities in the country’s future.

The challenge facing Democrats now is larger than simply winning the next election. The challenge is whether the party can build a coalition broad enough to compete politically without abandoning the principles and people that helped define it in the modern civil rights era.

That balance will not be easy.

But for those of us who lived through the beginning of this transformation, these debates do not feel theoretical. We have already seen how quickly this country can divide itself over who belongs, whose rights matter, and whose voices deserve to be heard.

And many of us worry that America may be entering another one of those periods again.

Why I Still Don’t Understand the Virginia Redistricting Election Timeline

Why I Still Don’t Understand the Virginia Redistricting Election Timeline

by | May 20, 2026 | Voting Rights

What continues to bother me about the Virginia redistricting referendum situation is not just the ruling itself, but the timeline.

By January 2026, the courts had already recognized serious legal questions about whether the amendment had even been placed on the ballot within the required constitutional timeframe. Lawsuits had already been filed. Judges were already ruling on it. This was not something discovered at the last minute, right before Election Day.

Yet the election was still allowed to move forward.

On January 27, a judge ruled the amendment unlawful and blocked it from appearing on the April ballot. Then the case was appealed. On February 13, the Virginia Supreme Court allowed the referendum to proceed. On February 19, another judge again ruled the amendment unlawful on different grounds. Then on March 2, the court basically said the election could move forward and the legal issues could be sorted out afterward.

Early voting started on March 6. That is the part I still struggle with. People keep talking about “avoiding confusion,” but honestly, what would have been more confusing than allowing Virginians to vote in an election that was still under serious legal dispute?

At that point, early voting had not even started yet. There was still time to stop, fully review the issue, and either approve the process or move the election date.

Instead, everybody moved forward under uncertainty.

More than $15 million was spent. Campaigns organized around the election. Election officials prepared for it. Voters participated in good faith believing the process had been cleared to proceed. Once the courts allowed the election to continue, most ordinary people naturally assumed the legal problems either had been resolved or were not serious enough to stop the election.

That matters.

The courts knew they still had the power to overturn things later if they chose to. They also knew there was always the possibility voters themselves might reject the amendment anyway, making the whole controversy irrelevant.

So I keep coming back to the same question:
If the courts knew as early as January that the timing might be unconstitutional, why not fully deal with it before voting started?

I understand there were probably concerns about the upcoming primaries, redistricting deadlines, and keeping the election calendar moving. But to me, that makes early clarity even more important, not less.

The larger the consequences, the more important it becomes to settle the legality before people vote.

What troubles me most is the growing feeling that institutions are becoming more focused on keeping the machinery running than making sure the public has confidence in the process itself.

At some point, protecting trust in democracy requires more than telling people to trust the system. It requires resolving major legal questions before voters spend their time, money, energy, and votes participating in an election that may still be legally unsettled.

Why the Struggle Over Who Gets to Vote Has Never Truly Ended

Why the Struggle Over Who Gets to Vote Has Never Truly Ended

by | May 18, 2026 | Voting Rights

Voting rights are rarely lost all at once. They erode quietly, through small changes, fading memory, and the belief that progress is permanent. History suggests otherwise.

In the United States, the right to vote has never simply existed. It has been defined, restricted, contested, and reclaimed across generations.

At the nation’s founding, political power rested in the hands of white male property owners. The vote was not designed to include everyone; it was designed to preserve influence among those who already held it. Democracy, in its earliest form here, was deliberately narrow.

Over time, that boundary shifted, but never easily and never without resistance.

After the Civil War, Black men were granted the right to vote through the Fifteenth Amendment. Almost immediately, that right was met with obstruction. Laws, intimidation, and violence followed. Literacy tests, poll taxes, and legal barriers did not emerge by accident; they were constructed to limit participation while preserving the appearance of democracy. The Constitution promised citizenship. Practice often enforced exclusion.

Women secured the vote in 1920 after decades of organizing and sacrifice. Native Americans were recognized as citizens in 1924, yet many still faced barriers that delayed meaningful access to the ballot. Every expansion of democracy required pressure. None of it was freely given. None of it was guaranteed to last.

History shows a consistent pattern: democracy expands when forced and contracts when vigilance weakens.

In our own time, debates over voting rules and access have again moved to the center of public life. Supporters describe these measures as necessary protections. Critics recognize an older dynamic: rules that, whether intentionally or not, narrow participation. When participation narrows, power concentrates. That pattern is not new.

Ignoring the role race has played, and continues to play, does not erase disparities. It allows them to persist without scrutiny. Progress, once achieved, does not sustain itself. It must be defended.

I learned this not first from history books, but from watching those before me understand that a barrier to the ballot is never merely administrative. It is a decision about whose voice carries weight.

This is not a partisan claim. It is a historical one.

Rights in the United States are rarely stripped away in a single act. More often, they erode gradually, through incremental rules, shifting requirements, and the quiet assumption that the work is finished. Each generation inherits both the gains and the unfinished obligations of the last.

Democracy has become more inclusive over time. That is undeniable. But history asks a harder question: will we recognize when the boundary begins to move again?

A democracy survives through participation, vigilance, and memory.

The right to vote has always been contested. When memory fades, erosion begins quietly and incrementally, often without announcement. Rights are rarely lost in a single moment; they are worn down over time.

The ballot is more than a procedure. It is the measure of who belongs and whose voice carries power.

When citizens stop watching, boundaries shift. When they remain attentive, democracy endures.

In the months ahead, we will be reminded again that barriers to the ballot are never abstract. They shape real lives, real voices, and the direction of a nation.

History does not repeat itself exactly, but it does follow patterns. The direction it moves, as it always has, depends on whether people choose to notice.

From Small’s First Vote to Today: Why This Supreme Court Decision Matters

From Small’s First Vote to Today: Why This Supreme Court Decision Matters

by | May 17, 2026 | Voting Rights

Today, the Supreme Court of the United States handed down a decision that feels like a step backward, and I do not say that lightly.

I think about my great-great-grandfather, Smallwood “Small” Ackiss, who was born into slavery and, after the Civil War, became one of the first Black men in his community to vote, something that was not given but claimed at great cost.

I also think about his great-granddaughter, Evelyn Butts, who challenged the poll tax all the way to the Supreme Court and helped end a system that made people pay to vote.

That history is not distant to me, it is my family, and that is why today’s decision lands the way it does.

The Court has made it harder to challenge voting maps that weaken the power of minority voters, because what once could be shown through a harmful effect will now often require proof of intentional discrimination.

Anyone who understands our history knows how difficult that is, because discrimination has rarely announced itself plainly and has instead adapted, using neutral language while producing unequal results.

This decision does not erase the right to vote, but it changes how that right is protected, and for me, that is where the concern lies.

From Small’s first vote to Evelyn’s fight, the lesson has always been the same: access alone is not enough, protection matters, participation matters, and vigilance matters.

We have seen barriers before, some obvious and some carefully constructed, and the question now is not only what the Court has done, but what we do next, how we participate, and whether we choose to use the rights that so many fought to secure.