If you don’t vote, you don’t count

Those words were often said by Vernon Dahmer, civil rights leader, voting rights evangelist, community leader, and successful businessman.

He was murdered by the Klan on January 10, 1966 for, amongst other things, recruiting Black Americans to vote.

‘If you don’t vote, you don’t count.’

Reading about Dahmer took me down a rabbit hole of this country’s despicable past (which the Republi/Fascist party is working overtime to restore to full heinous strength).

Did you know? In the 1950s the NAACP was outlawed, fucking illegal, in the state of Mississippi.

Across the South, Black teachers are a mainstay of NAACP membership. In 1956, states such as Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina repeal or amend teacher tenure laws. They then pass legislation aimed at firing educators who belong to the NAACP. Mississippi, for example, enacts rules barring teachers who belong to “subversive” organizations and requiring all teachers to file an affidavit listing the organizations they have belonged to for the past five years. Since the state declares the NAACP to be a “subversive” group, teachers and administrators in the segregated Colored schools must resign their NAACP memberships or lose their jobs. South Carolina passes similar regulations. (source)

“Sovereignty commissions” were set up.

In 1956, Mississippi establishes a Sovereignty Commission to act as the state’s secret political police and guardian of white-supremacy. Its purpose is to maintain segregation by any means necessary, and to destroy the NAACP and other civil rights organizations that dare to operate in Mississippi. The main focus of commission activities is investigation, spying, disruption, sabotage, and elimination of organizations and individuals who challenge the racial status quo. Other southern states follow Mississippi’s lead and establish similar commissions and agencies. (source)

Have you heard about the White Citizens Council?

In response to Brown v Board of Education white business leaders and politicians organize the White Citizens Council (WCC) to defend white-supremacy, resist integration, and suppress all efforts on the part of Blacks to improve their lives. The WCC is an organization of those with money or influence — planters, law makers and public officials, bankers, businessmen, managers, doctors, lawyers, and ministers. Many WCC members and leaders have a direct economic interest in keeping Blacks “in their place” (poor, exploited, and powerless).
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In 1985, former leaders of the White Citizens Council found the “Council of Conservative Citizens,” an organization that today still follows the reactionary, white-supremacy tradition of the White Citizens Councils. (source)

Before Vernon Dahmer died, he told a local newspaper reporter:

I've been active in trying to get people to register to vote. People who don't vote are deadbeats on the state. I figure a man needs to do his own thinking. What happened to us last night can happen to anyone, white or black. At one time I didn't think so, but I have changed my mind.

In-fucking-deed!

Out of the 16 Klansmen brought to trial, only four were convicted. All others ended in mistrials due to jury tampering by Klanidiots.

KKK Imperial Wizard Sam Bowers, (who also taught Sunday school) ordered the hit on Dahmer, was tried four times. Each one, unsurprisingly, ended in mistrial. Finally, 25 years after the last trial, Bowers was brought to justice. He died in prison at the age of 82, having served just eight years for his brutal, horrifying crime.

Ten and I got our Vote by Mail ballots the other day. I’m filling mine out today. We’ll take a walk up to the mailbox (a block away and YES this counts as rehab exercise) later.

 ‘If you don’t vote, you don’t count.’