CLEVELAND — The first election in which I cast a vote was for George McGovern in 1972. In the intervening 50 years, much has changed in American politics.
First, McGovern was a liberal Democrat from South Dakota. Although the majority of South Dakotans did not give McGovern their votes for president in 1972, the state did deliver his fourth-strongest tally, after Massachusetts (the only state he carried), Rhode Island and Minnesota. Fifty years later, South Dakota has become a solidly Republican stronghold in which no Democrat could imagine winning in a presidential election.
The other major change in American electoral politics since 1972 has involved the act of voting itself.
My first vote occurred seven years after the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965. As a result of that bill, signed into law by President Lyndon Baines Johnson, access to voter participation was greatly increased. That was especially true for African Americans living in states in the former Confederacy where voter suppression had been legally, brutally, and systematically enforced, despite the fact that their right to vote had been guaranteed by the adoption of the 15th Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1870.
Voter suppression was not an issue in Chicago, where I was born and where I cast that first vote in 1972. However, there was a member of my family named Edward Doneghay who was shot and killed in Kentucky in 1930 as a result of his attempts to become a registered voter.
In my view, the Voting Rights Act was one of the great achievements in American political history. It should not be forgotten that the Voting Rights Act would not have become a reality if it had not been for the events of March 7, 1965, otherwise known as Bloody Sunday, when John Lewis and hundreds of others were attacked by Alabama State Patrol officers on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama.
Americans across the country saw that act of brutality on national TV and recognized the attack for what it was — an act of voter suppression, since the point of the march was to challenge restrictions on voting registration in Alabama.
Here we are, 50 years later, and the Voting Rights Act has been weakened by the U.S. Supreme Court, with even more changes being considered by that court during its current term, involving voting rights in the state of Alabama once again.
In addition, we hear U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama speaking at a Donald Trump rally in which he says that Democrats are “pro-crime. They want crime. They want crime because they want to take over what you got. …. They want reparations because they think the people that do the crime are owed that.”
The implication being that African Americans are the only ones committing crime in this country. It should be noted that not one national Republican elected official has condemned Tube4rville’s comments.
The Rev. Marvin A. McMickle is pastor emeritus of Antioch Baptist Church in Cleveland.
The clock on race relations in this country is being turned back! One state after another has imposed voter suppression laws that will limit access to who can vote in elections in 2022, and more importantly, in 2024. The mood in parts of the country is moving from democracy to autocracy.
Ohio is no exception to these changes. What a change I have seen in American politics since I first voted in 1972. Nevertheless, nothing will stop me from voting. I hope others across the country feel the same way.
The Rev. Marvin A. McMickle is pastor emeritus of Antioch Baptist Church in Cleveland and retired president of Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School in Rochester, New York.
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