Your Right to Vote

The right to vote is the right that protects all other rights. “When politicians make it harder to vote, they aren't securing elections. They're protecting themselves from the will of the people.”

This district knows what freedom costs. At a Juneteenth celebration in Halifax County this year, Tom spoke of the courage and sacrifice that brought us this far: Emancipation didn’t come because Washington had a change of heart. It came because Black Americans rose up and fought for it—"freed Black men as fighters and courageous Black women as spies" turned the Civil War, and Black soldiers from this very area helped take Richmond. 

A century later, that same courage won the Voting Rights Act. “We are not a perfect nation; we have much work to do.” But to those trying to drag us backward, to make it harder for your neighbors to vote, Tom's answer is the one he gave on Juneteenth: “Not on our watch. We have come too far.” To paraphrase Langston Hughes, the America that has not yet been, yet will be.