Progress Is Not Permanent
A personal reflection on voting rights, redistricting, and why democratic progress must still be defended.
I have been thinking a great deal lately about voting rights, representation, and how quickly Americans forget that democratic progress is neither automatic nor permanent.
Watching current redistricting battles unfold has brought back memories I have carried my entire life. I was born under Jim Crow, and I was raised in a family where voting rights were never theoretical discussions. My mother, Evelyn Butts, fought Virginia’s poll tax system all the way to the Supreme Court because she understood exactly what was at stake when citizens are denied full participation in democracy.
This piece is personal for me. It is about memory, representation, and why I still believe participation matters, even in moments when many people feel discouraged or disillusioned.
I was born under Jim Crow.
That is not something I read about in a history book. It is something I lived through.
In my family, voting rights were never abstract political debates because my mother would not let them be. They shaped how people lived, what they could hope for, and whether their voices counted at all. I grew up understanding that rights could be limited, delayed, or denied because I grew up watching my mother refuse to accept that as the final word.
That is why today’s redistricting battles do not feel distant or procedural to me. They feel familiar.
When I hear discussions about Black representation shrinking in Congress, I do not hear ordinary political analysis. I hear echoes of something older. I hear a country growing comfortable again with weakening protections that generations of Americans fought to secure.
Many people today grew up believing progress would continue naturally. They saw Black elected officials, Black mayors, Black members of Congress, and Black judges, and assumed the country had permanently settled certain questions.
Those of us old enough to remember segregation know better: progress is not permanent.
In my family, voting rights lived at our table and in our conversations because they lived so deeply in my mother’s life. My mother, Evelyn Butts, challenged Virginia’s poll tax all the way to the Supreme Court because poor Black citizens were literally being required to pay for the right to vote. Long before many Americans spoke comfortably about voting rights as settled law, she understood what was at stake and was willing to fight for it.
That was not ancient history; that was my life.
I watched what those fights demanded of my mother and of the people around her. I watched the strain, the resistance, and the persistence it took simply to secure rights many Americans now speak of as if they arrived on their own.
When I think back to that time, I do not recall abstractions. I remember what endurance looked like up close.
Those rights did not appear naturally; people sacrificed for them, endured humiliation for them, and risked their jobs, safety, reputations, and sometimes their lives.
And even after victories were won, nothing was automatic.
That is why I grow uneasy when I hear people casually dismiss concerns about voting rights protections, representation, or redistricting. I cannot hear those arguments without thinking about my mother and about how hard she fought against barriers that many people now barely remember.
I have lived long enough to know that democratic progress does not sustain itself. Once a country starts moving backward, it can do so faster than people expect.
What worries me now is that discrimination does not always arrive in the forms people expect. It does not always come announced or plainly named. More often, it comes dressed in language meant to sound neutral and respectable.
Now it often appears wrapped in technical language.
“Race-neutral maps.”
“Judicial interpretation.”
“Election integrity.”
“Redistricting adjustments.”
It sounds procedural, reasonable, and even boring.
But outcomes matter more than terminology.
When Black communities lose political influence after generations of struggle, it matters.
When representation shrinks, it matters.
When protections built through generations of sacrifice are steadily weakened, it matters.
And because these changes happen gradually, many people fail to recognize what they are watching in real time.
Those of us who lived through earlier eras recognize the pattern more quickly because we have seen versions of it before.
We know exclusion does not always return wearing the same clothes it wore before.
The language changes, the methods evolve, and the mechanisms grow more sophisticated.
But the struggle over who fully belongs in American democracy never disappears completely.
That is why voting still matters so much to me, and why I have never been able to treat it casually. For me, it is bound up with my mother’s example and with the life she showed me, which was necessary to defend that right.
I do not vote because I believe any political party is perfect; I vote because I know what it cost previous generations to secure that right in the first place.
I think about my mother every time I hear someone say voting does not matter.
I think about what it meant for her to challenge a system that expected silence and compliance.
I think about the people who stood in line despite intimidation, humiliation, and barriers designed to wear them down.
And I carry those memories with me every time I step into a voting booth. In many ways, I still feel that I am walking in a path she helped clear.
And I think about how dangerous it is when citizens begin surrendering their political power out of frustration, cynicism, or exhaustion, because I know how hard-won that power was to begin with.
That is exactly when rights become easier to weaken.
I understand disappointment with politics. I understand anger. I understand why many people feel unheard by both parties. But refusing to participate does not protect democracy; it leaves decisions in the hands of people who are already organized, motivated, and determined to shape the future without you.
The answer to democratic erosion is not disengagement but participation.
Vote in local elections.
Vote in state elections.
Vote in congressional elections.
Vote even when discouraged.
Vote even when progress feels slow.
Vote because some of us were raised by people like my mother, who understood exactly what it cost to defend democracy.
Too many Americans assume the rights they inherited are guaranteed forever.
Some of us have lived long enough to know that is not true.Top of Form