Why Voting Matters

Why Voting Matters

by | Jun 22, 2026 | Family Legacy, Start Here, Voting Rights

"If votes didn't matter, people would never have worked so hard to deny them."

People often ask why voting matters.

For me, the answer is personal.

It is personal because I know the names of the people in my family who were denied the vote. I know the names of those who fought to protect it. And I know what it feels like to spend years encouraging others to use a right that so many Americans take for granted.

When I began researching my great-great-grandfather, Smallwood Ackiss, I was searching for family history. What I found was something much larger.

In an 1867 poll book from Princess Anne County, Virginia, I found his name.

"Ackiss, Smallwood."

More than 150 years after the election, I was looking at the official record of my great-great-grandfather's first vote.

That moment carried enormous meaning.

Just a few years earlier, Smallwood had been enslaved. Like millions of other African Americans, he had lived in a country where he could be bought, sold, and denied the most basic rights of citizenship. Yet on October 22, 1867, he stood in line with other newly enfranchised Black men and cast a ballot in an election that would help shape Virginia's future.

I often wonder what he was thinking that day.

Did he understand how historic the moment was? Did he realize that future generations of his family would still be talking about that vote more than a century later?

I know what that vote means to me.

It reminds me that voting is not merely a political act. It is an act of citizenship. It is a declaration that your voice matters.

My mother, Evelyn Butts, understood that.

By the time she came of age, African Americans technically had the right to vote, but Virginia had found other ways to make voting difficult. The poll tax required citizens to pay before they could cast a ballot. For many families, especially poor families, it was one more barrier standing between them and full participation in American democracy.

My mother refused to accept that.

She registered voters. She educated citizens about their rights. And when the opportunity came, she challenged the poll tax itself. Her lawsuit became part of the Supreme Court case that ended the poll tax in state and local elections.

She often reminded people that rights mean very little if citizens are unable or unwilling to exercise them.

Years later, I found myself carrying that lesson into my own life.

While living in Nebraska, I spent years registering voters and encouraging people to participate in elections. During one voter registration drive in 2008, I spoke with a young man who had attended school with my youngest daughter.

He told me his vote did not matter.

He believed that the people in power did not care what he thought.

I understood his frustration, but I also thought about Smallwood Ackiss and Evelyn Butts.

Smallwood had lived in a world where he could not vote.

My mother had lived in a world where voting came with obstacles deliberately designed to discourage participation.

This young man lived in a world where the challenge was different. The obstacle was not slavery. It was not a poll tax. It was the belief that participation would make no difference.

That conversation has stayed with me for years.

Every generation faces its own challenges. The barriers change. The arguments change. The frustrations change.

But the question remains the same. Will we participate?

Voting does not guarantee that we will get the outcome we want. It does not guarantee that elected officials will always make the right decisions. It does not guarantee that our side will win.

What it does guarantee is that we have a voice.

When I think about my great-great-grandfather casting his first ballot in 1867, I am reminded that voting is both a right and a responsibility. When I think about my mother challenging the poll tax, I am reminded that every generation must protect that right. And when I think about the young man in Nebraska, I am reminded that the greatest threat to voting is often the belief that it no longer matters.

I disagree.

It mattered to Smallwood Ackiss. It mattered to Evelyn Butts. And it still matters today.

"If votes didn't matter, people would never have worked so hard to deny them."

 

The First Vote

The First Vote

by | Jun 13, 2026 | Family Legacy, Start Here, Voting Rights

The First Vote

Smallwood Ackiss, Willis Augustus Hodges, and the Long Struggle for Political Power in Virginia

When I started researching my great-great-grandfather's first vote, I thought the story would be about Smallwood Ackiss.

I was wrong.

Instead, I found myself fascinated by a man I had never heard of before: Willis Augustus Hodges.

The discovery began with a poll book from Princess Anne County dated October 22, 1867.

As I scanned the names, I suddenly saw it.

"Ackiss, Smallwood."

There it was in black and white. More than 150 years after the election, I was looking at the official record showing that my great-great-grandfather had voted. Voter number three.

I sat there for a moment thinking about what that must have meant.

Just a few years earlier, Smallwood had been enslaved in Princess Anne County. During the Civil War, he enlisted in the Union Army and served in Company E of the 23rd United States Colored Troops. Now he was standing in line with other Black men, casting a ballot for the first time.

The poll book lists 144 African American men who voted in the Third District that day. Smallwood was among them.

What I did not know at the time was that this single document would lead me to one of the most remarkable Virginians I have ever researched.

His name was Willis Augustus Hodges.

I have lived in Virginia most of my life. I attended Virginia schools. I have spent years researching Black history, civil rights, and Virginia politics. Yet somehow, I reached my seventies without ever hearing his name.

That surprised me.

Willis Augustus Hodges was born free in Princess Anne County in 1815. He was an abolitionist, newspaper publisher, political activist, and advocate for equal rights long before the Civil War. He spent decades speaking out against slavery and fighting for citizenship and political rights for African Americans.

His activism came at a cost.

After Nat Turner's rebellion in 1831, free Black families throughout Virginia faced growing suspicion and hostility. The Hodges family was among those who moved between Virginia and New York as conditions became increasingly dangerous for free African Americans.

Yet despite everything he experienced, Hodges never gave up on Virginia.

At one point, he wrote:

"With all thy faults, I still love thee."

That sentence stayed with me.

It would have been understandable if Hodges had walked away. Instead, he kept returning and kept fighting for a better future for the Commonwealth.

As I continued researching, I began asking a different question.

How did hundreds of newly enfranchised Black men in Princess Anne County unite behind Hodges in 1867?

The more I learned, the more I realized the story did not begin in 1867.

It began earlier.

In 1865, African American men in Norfolk organized the Colored Monitor Union Club and demanded full citizenship, including the right to vote. Similar organizations formed in Hampton, Richmond, and other Virginia communities. Later that year, Black leaders from across Virginia met at a Colored State Convention in Alexandria and declared that voting was an essential right of citizenship.

They were not waiting for someone else to define freedom for them.

They were defining it for themselves.

What struck me was how organized these efforts already were. Clubs were being formed. Meetings were being held. Political ideas were being shared across communities.

By the time Smallwood Ackiss cast his first vote in October 1867, the groundwork had already been laid.

Suddenly, the election results made more sense.

Across Princess Anne County, Black voters rallied behind Willis Augustus Hodges. This was not an isolated event. Evidence from other Virginia communities suggests that newly enfranchised African Americans were participating in politics at remarkably high rates.

I cannot help but wonder about the conversations that took place before election day.

Did men gather in churches to discuss the candidates?

Did veterans of the United States Colored Troops encourage others to register?

Did community leaders travel from neighborhood to neighborhood, spreading the word?

I do not know.

What I do know is that when the votes were counted, Willis Augustus Hodges received overwhelming support from Black voters throughout Princess Anne County.

The election revealed something many white Virginians had underestimated: African Americans intended to exercise their new political rights and use them collectively.

African Americans were not simply participating in politics.

They were becoming a political force.

Interestingly, some white Virginia Unionists had already recognized that fact.

In 1865, alarmed by the rapid return of former Confederates to positions of influence, some white Unionists concluded that African American suffrage was essential if they hoped to remain politically competitive. They supported extending the vote to Black men not only because it was the right thing to do, but because they recognized the political power Black voters could bring to a coalition committed to a different future for Virginia.

That observation struck me because it sounds familiar.

Throughout American history, coalitions have formed when different groups discover that their interests overlap.

Black Virginians wanted citizenship, voting rights, and equal protection under the law.

White Unionists wanted a government that would remain loyal to the principles for which the Union had fought.

Together, they helped create one of the most significant political movements in Virginia's history.

For a time, it worked.

Willis Augustus Hodges helped write a new constitution for Virginia. He advocated voting rights, equal treatment under the law, and public education. His leadership made him a target of ridicule in newspapers that opposed Reconstruction and Black political participation.

Then the backlash began.

As I continued researching, I discovered something else that surprised me.

Many people associate Virginia's disfranchisement efforts with the Constitutional Convention of 1901–1902. Yet the process began much earlier.

In 1876, Virginia adopted a poll tax requirement and additional restrictions that reduced voter participation and contributed to a decline in African American political representation.

The effort to limit Black political influence did not happen overnight.

It happened step by step.

The Constitution of 1902 would accelerate that process and help usher in the Jim Crow era.

When I looked at the timeline, I could not help but think about my own family.

In 1867, Smallwood Ackiss cast his first vote.

Nine years later, Virginia began erecting barriers designed to reduce the political influence of voters like him.

Nearly a century later, my mother, Evelyn Butts, would help challenge one of those barriers when she fought Virginia's poll tax all the way to the United States Supreme Court.

The more I learn, the more I realize these are not separate stories but different chapters in the same story.

As I look at the name "Ackiss, Smallwood" in that poll book, I find myself thinking about more than the past.

I think about the present.

The issues facing voters today are different from those faced by Smallwood Ackiss in 1867 or by Evelyn Butts in the 1960s. History never repeats itself exactly, but certain patterns remain familiar. People organize, coalitions form, political power shifts, and others react. Debates emerge over participation, representation, and influence.

The names change. The issues change. The parties change.

Yet the fundamental question remains the same:

Who gets a voice in shaping the future?

When Smallwood Ackiss cast his first vote on October 22, 1867, he was doing more than choosing a candidate. He was claiming a place in American democracy.

More than 150 years later, that lesson still matters because democracy ultimately depends on who is able—and willing—to participate in it.

 

Chapter 1: Fear Is Cheaper Than Persuasion

Chapter 1: Fear Is Cheaper Than Persuasion

by | May 27, 2026 | Commentary, Start Here

This series reflects on fear not as emotion alone, but as a system of deterrence through which societies teach people when to speak, when to hesitate, and when to remain silent.

There are two basic ways to govern people. You can persuade them or frighten them.

Persuasion takes time. It requires arguments, patience, listening, and compromise. It assumes people can be reached.

Fear is much faster. It does not need to convince anyone of anything. It only needs to be believed.

I did not learn this as an abstraction. I watched it happen in my own family.

In April of 1968, I was nineteen years old. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on April 4. The country shifted overnight. Conversations changed. Silences grew longer. People paid attention differently.

Easter fell on April 14 that year. My mother went to work as she usually did. During the Easter season, she sometimes worked as a temporary seamstress in a men’s clothing store, making alterations. In those days, people dressed up for church. The stores were busy, and there was always work to do.

That week, she wore her March on Washington button to work. She talked about Dr. King. She talked about the struggle, not loudly or disruptively, but clearly enough that anyone listening understood where she stood. She worked all day.

And that was the last day they ever called her back. No one said she was fired. No one claimed she had done anything wrong. They simply never asked her to return. It was a white-owned store. No explanation was necessary.

I understood exactly what had happened.

That is how fear-based systems prefer to work. They do not argue with you. They do not debate you. They do not even have to threaten you directly. They quietly make an example, and everyone else notices.

Fear doesn't have to be justified; it just needs to seem convincing. It doesn't need to win people's affection; it only needs to silence opposition.

Jim Crow did not survive because most people believed in it. It survived because most people understood the cost of challenging it.

Fear worked through many channels. Sometimes it was loud: threats, violence, intimidation. Sometimes it was quiet: lost jobs, closed doors, phone calls that never came. Most of the time, it was simply understood.

You did not need to be told what would happen if you stepped out of line. You learned by watching what happened to someone else.

That is the logic of fear-based systems. They do not have to punish everyone. They only have to punish enough. After that, the rest of the work gets done voluntarily.

People monitor themselves. They measure their words and warn each other. They stay in bounds without being told because they already know the consequences of stepping outside them.

Over time, the lines stop feeling imposed. They begin to feel natural, just the way things are.

My mother had lived inside a system like that her whole life. She watched what it did to people. She watched how it trained them to lower their voices, narrow their hopes, and explain their own confinement as realism.

But she also saw something else. She saw how fragile that system really was. Because fear has one great weakness: it depends on believability. The moment enough people stop believing that silence will save them, fear begins to lose its power.

That is why fear-based systems work so hard to stay visible. They need examples, stories, and reminders. Fear does not have to be constant. It only has to be available. We like to tell ourselves we live in a more sophisticated era, and in some ways we do. But the basic logic has not changed. It is still easier to frighten people into compliance than to persuade them to agree.

The tools evolve. The method remains. My mother’s life is not simply a story about the past. It is a story about this logic, about what fear does to people, how it shapes behavior, and what happens when someone finally decides not to accept it anymore.

But before lawsuits, courtrooms, and headlines, there was the daily world we all had to live inside, a world where the system rarely announced itself dramatically.

It taught its lessons quietly, through routine, repetition, and small humiliations that were meant to seem ordinary.

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.