Witnessing History

Here in DC, we are starting week 4 and are currently freaking out at being almost halfway through this incredible experience. I feel like it was just yesterday when we were trying to figure out if our cabbie was cheating us on the way from the airport to our intern housing (jury's still out on that one - seriously). We've already gone grocery shopping about three times and we are now nearly registered experts at being adults in a city as amazing as this one.

Last week, we went to the film premiere of the "Barber of Birmingham." The movie is about Civil Rights foot soldier, James Armstrong, who carried the flag in the Civil Rights marches in Alabama. He survived the police brutality and harsh discrimination in the South while marching and performing sit-ins. He even demonstrated in the "Bloody Sunday" march on Selma and proudly proclaimed that amidst all the chaos, he never let his flag touch the ground. He was one of the foot soldiers who would have remained nameless had the documentarians not chosen to make a movie about him. At the film premiere, his four children spoke about his fight - about him always being ready to march even in his old age. After his children spoke, a Civil Rights foot soldier, Amelia Boynton Robinson, took to the podium. She said that we (those who are voting now because of her and other foot soldiers' efforts) were standing on her shoulders and we needed to quote, "get off and start our own fight." She called the youth to action and told us that if we could not vote, we were second class citizens. While she was speaking, I could not have been more proud of Rock the Vote's efforts. Rock the Vote and other organizations dedicated to asserting the rights of all voters are continuing the fight of these Civil Rights foot soldiers. I was in awe of the audience at the premiere and all that they had done to secure my right to vote.

In addition to learning about African-Americans securing their right to vote, we learned about the women's suffrage movement from our Duke Engage professor. She took us to the Sewall-Belmont House (headquarters of the National Woman's Party) and invited us to her home to show us the movie, "Iron Jawed Angels." The movie brought to life what we saw in the Sewall-Belmont House. We witnessed people abuse and fight women simply because they wanted a say - a right to vote. After the movie, our professor invited Nancy Tate, the Executive Director of the League of Women Voters, to come and speak to us. The League is a continuation of the National Woman's Party. Ms. Tate discussed the fight that the League has continued in order to ensure that everyone has a right to vote. Mainly, she discussed the new voter registration laws that will make it much harder to vote, including strict photo I.D. and residential requirements. Again, I was in awe of what women like Alice Paul did with the National Woman's Party to secure the right to vote and what people like the League of Women Voters are doing to make sure that the right to vote does not go away.

We have come so far in society, especially here in the States, and I would hate to see that progress go backward. We need groups like Rock the Vote, the League of Women Voters and the League of Young Voters to continue the fight for equality so that all of us can be first-class citizens.