Election Day is just hours away. When the polls close at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, the future of our community and our state will have been decided by how many black women showed up and voted.
You read that right. Black women will decide this election.
After all the noise and drama surrounding the election over the past year, one truth has remained constant: when we vote, our community wins. In the last two national elections, it was black women who voted in high enough numbers to become the deciding factor in so many elections across the country–not to mention two terms for President Obama.
This isn’t a secret. The right-wing establishment knows our votes are powerful, and so they’re attempting to deny many us access to the ballot box with Amendment 6.
Amendment 6 would allow for the kind of restrictive Photo ID laws we’ve seen in states like North Carolina, Alabama and Texas. It would keep hundreds of thousands of Missouri voters–many of them elderly, disabled, students, low-income, or people of color–from casting their ballots.
Photo ID is just a poll tax by another name, and we must stop it.
There is no greater issue fundamental to our power than the Vote–it is the crowning achievement of the civil rights movement so many literally fought and died to win. As black women, we must lead the fight to protect access to the vote, and protect our community’s ability to elect our leaders, and hold them accountable in prioritizing policies that affect our lives and our demand for justice.
Given everything that has happened in St. Louis and Missouri in the last two years, I cannot stress how critical it is that we maintain access to our single most powerful tool to enact the change needed for our communities to thrive, for our children to get an equal education, and for us to have a voice in how government addresses issues of crime and state violence.
This Tuesday, we’re being called upon again to lead, and to protect our community’s future.
Please join me in voting “NO” on Amendment 6.
See you at the polls.
Tishaura O. Jones is the Treasurer for the City of St. Louis.
