By: Donald V. Watkins
Copyrighted and Published on February 3, 2023
An Editorial Opinion
The right to vote is sacred! Exercise it liberally!
Women, Native Americans, and African-Americans had to fight to get the right to vote.
I first gained the right to vote in Alabama when I was 18-years-old, thanks to the Voting Rights Act of 1965. At the time, nearly every white public official in Alabama proudly tried to defeat the letter and spirit of the Voting Rights Act.
I exercised my right to vote religiously because I knew that millions of people of interracial goodwill protested across the nation to make my exercise of this right a reality. Many of these voting rights activists were beaten in Southern states like Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Louisiana, Kentucky, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Florida in a futile effort to crush the voting rights movement. Some of them were viciously murdered in the hopes that their deaths would discourage African-Americans from seeking, gaining, and exercising the right to vote.
In 2019, the state of Alabama gleefully purged me from its voter rolls. They said I was not "fit" to vote in Alabama. The state couldn't wait to disenfranchise my voting rights and silence my social media voice.
Since its inception, Alabama has had an unrelenting historical agenda "to keep its black citizens economically, socially, and politically downtrodden, from the cradle to the grave." In Dillard v. Crenshaw, 640 F. Supp. 1347, 1359-60 (M.D. Ala. 1986), the U.S. District Court detailed Alabama's horrific history discrimination against blacks in nearly every aspect of public life.
Today, a political candidate for a statewide office, or a legislative office from predominantly white district, who does not ascribe to the time-honored custom and practice of discriminating against blacks cannot be elected to public office in Alabama.
Regardless of how hard they try, no man or woman will ever permanently disenfranchise me of my right to vote, and no man or woman will ever take my manhood from me.
Every person who has tried to take my manhood from me has failed.
Furthermore, the state of California has restored my right to vote. Today, I am a registered Independent voter, once again.
We should all remember that racism never wins permanent victories in a multicultural society!
Next week, I will begin the process of forming a California-based Super-PAC for the 2024 presidential election. I already have commitments to fund the Super-PAC with donations of up to $75 million between now and the 2024 election. The Super-PAC will register two million new Independent voters in six swing states before the 2024 elections.
If you believe in participatory democracy for all eligible U.S. citizens, please join me in this new political investment in American democracy! Those who would disenfranchise all Americans of color, who would abuse and dishonor Native Americans, again, and who are currently stripping women of their constitutional rights, have America on her knees right now. We can and must stop them in their tracks! Our children and grandchildren are depending on us to fight their regressive political agendas.
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