This image is of Peggy (R), then a 19 year-old SNCC member, next to future civil rights icon, Dr. Dorothy Cotton (L), after a 1962 church burning in Georgia—the state that Peggy's great-great grandparents, William & Ellen Craft, famously escaped from slavery nearly 115 years earlier...
MY
W E E K L Y
W O R D
V O T I N G R I G H T S
1.23.22
Peggy Trotter Dammond Preacely
Dr. Dorothy Cotton
I am still reeling from last week's horrible defeat by the GOP Senators (no thanks to help from Manchin and Sinema) of the filibuster rules change to help pass the already House-passed John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and the Senate's Freedom To Vote Act (which pulled portions from the House's For The People Act). That Senate vote brought back a torrent of devastating memories for me, having been on the Deep South frontlines as a SNCC member in the 1960s promoting civil/voting rights, let alone remembering those who were killed in that effort.
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Therefore, this week I've decided to take a poem I'd originally written to celebrate voting rights on the 58th Anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington. Though the 1965 Voting Rights Act passed two years later after Selma's Bloody Sunday, voting rights was still a key demand we made at the March on Washington (yes, I was there), which also set in motion the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The poem is entitled, The Vote Derailed.
And while my heart is heavy and I am angry that our hard won struggle is under active attack again by GOP Senators and Congressmembers (enabled by two U.S. Senate Democrats), they have another thing coming if they think the fight is over, they would be wrong. And this poem is a clarion call for all who believe in democracy to fight for it in 2022 as the midterms loom ahead, or we will assuredly lose our democracy...except this time, it's likely forever if we do nothing....
​​by Peggy Trotter Dammond Preacely
"THE VOTE DERAILED"
There it was
The John Lewis Voting Rights Act
The right to vote
To be heard
To be safe
To participate
That ancient call to reach forth
To stretch against the tide...
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We called on the ancestors
Rode the wings of promises
Knocked on the doors
Organized the people
Spurned the fears
Rode the rails
Beat the drums
Carried one another
Dodged the bullets
Outlasted the hatred
Outran the dogs
Resisted the lies
Wrote the Senators
Checked the boxes
Lifted a hand
Pulled the lever
Mailed the ballot
Braved the cold
Sweated the heat
Stood in line
Talked the talk
Walked the walk...
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We now stand
On our hallowed ground
Aghast!
Still in a battle
Which should
At the least,
And at last,
Have seen a victory.
© 2022 Peggy Trotter Dammond Preacely. All rights reserved.