I STARTED NOT TO VOTE! (A Poem)

 

 

 I StARTED NOT TO VOTE! 

BUT…

Then, I thought

 

I thought about the 4,743 men and some women

Lynched

Hanging lifeless from trees like “Strange Fruit”

Men Castrated

Blood, running like the Nile River

Down their legs

Past bare feet

Soaking into the ground

Some tried to vote

 

I started not to vote

BUT…

Then, I thought

 

I thought about a pregnant Mary Turner

Belly sliced open; fetus falls to the ground

Boots bloody with hate crush the infant’s head

Mary had protested her husband’s lynching.

 

I started not to vote

BUT…

Then, I thought

 

I thought about Black women’s hair yanked

Dragged through streets

Suffering vicious police dog bites

Fire hoses’ powerful gusts of water

Swept them off their feet

 

White, hate-filled police, mobs

Kicked them in their backs

Kicked them in their stomachs

Beat them bloody

Jailed them, Humiliated them, Abused them

They were protesting for Civil Rights and the right to vote

 

I started not to vote

BUT…

Then, I thought

 

I thought about Fannie Lou Hamer

Fighting for civil rights and voting rights

Arrested…. Police beat her

 

I started not to vote

BUT…

Then, I thought

 

I thought about the 15 teenage girls

Arrested

Hidden in an abandoned Civil War-era stockade

Americus, Georgia

Their parents didn’t know their whereabouts

They had marched for equal rights

 

I started not to vote

BUT…

Then, I thought

 

I thought about Freedom Summer and the Freedom Riders

Blacks and Whites

Helping African Americans register to vote

Hateful racists set their bus ablaze

Choking on smoke

Nearly burned alive

Anniston, Alabama

 

I started not to vote

BUT…

Then, I thought

 

I thought about Congressman John Lewis

Marching for equal rights and the right to vote

Beaten within an inch of his life

Cracked skull

“Bloody Sunday”

Selma, Alabama

 

I started not to vote

BUT…

Then, I thought

 

I thought about 4 little girls

Murdered!

White supremacists

Bombed 16^th Street Baptist Church

Birmingham, Alabama

 

I started not to vote

BUT…

Then, I thought

 

I thought about Medgar Evers, James Meredith, Jimmie Lee Jackson, Amadou Diallo, Andrew Goodwin, James Chaney, Michael Schwerner, Viola Liuzzo, Tamir Rice, Sandra Bland, Philando Castile, Daniel T. Prude, Breonna Taylor, Emmett Till, Ahmaud Arbery, Shawn Reed, Shawn Bell, Trayvon Martin, Joshua Brown, Elijah McClain, Botham Jean, Atatiana Jefferson, David Cornelius Smith, George Floyd……

Sooooooo many, many, many, many, many, many… Murdered!

They can’t vote!

 

I started not to vote

BUT…

Then, I thought

 

I thought about Heather Heyer- Charlottesville, Virginia

Joseph Rosenbaum, Anthony Huber - Kenosha, Wisconsin

Summer Taylor - Seattle Washington

Protesting police violence

Supporting Black Lives Matter

Murdered!

They can’t vote!

 

I started not to vote

BUT…

Then, I thought

 

I thought about climate change and

Environmental crimes

I thought about Gun violence

Children murdered in schools, in streets, in homes.

 

I started not to vote

BUT…

Then, I thought

 I thought about voter suppression

 

I started not to vote

BUT, then…

 I VOTED!!!

 

"The vote is precious.  

It is almost sacred.  

It is the most powerful non-violent tool we have in a democracy."  

The Honorable John Lewis

  

W.E. Littlejohn ©2018    Revised 2020