Letter to Editor
By James Hankins
You are standing in a long voting line and your legs are tied; your back is starting to hurt, and your left foot is killing you. You can quietly slip out of that line go to your car and none of your friends will ever know but a few people looking down on you will say “STAY IN THAT LINE”. Your slave ancestors who were taken from their homeland, transported in the bottom of a ship and treated less than dogs but never gave up are saying to you. “STAY IN THAT LINE”. Harriet Tubman (our Black Moses) who escaped to freedom but made”13″ trips back to free other slaves. She once told Frederick Douglass “I freed a thousand slaves—I could have freed a thousand more if only they knew they were slaves”. Harriet would look you in your eyes and say, “STAY IN THAT LINE”. Thousands of people were demoted on their jobs, fired, beaten, run out of town and some killed fighting for congress to pass the Civil Rights Bill in 1964 and the Voting Rights Act in 1965. Both bills were signed by Democrat President Lyndon Johnson. They all would say to you “STAY IN THAT LINE”. The three M’s martyrs – Medgar Evers (Field Secretary NAACP), Malcolm X (Muslim Minister) and Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (Baptist Minister/SCLC)- were all assassinated (1963, 1965 and 1968) fighting for civil rights would say to you. “STAY IN THAT LINE”. Your family members who taught you how to register and vote will not physically be in line with you but will be there in spirit are whispering to you “STAY IN THAT LINE”! Excerpt from my book— “What We Blacks Need To Do”!!!
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