Tears and Laughter: Between the history and the hereafter…in Wilcox County

Whatever the results of the election…from here we go forward.

With his campaign ad cut, the Golden Dragon open and free Pre-K promised to at least 70 percent of the county’s children – the governor has gone home.

Any FBI agents and state investigators interviewing people about voter fraud, again, will gather their findings and depart.

We could send more letters to the Attorney General and email the Secretary of State. We could call Kay Ivey and invite Jeff Sessions to come see us. But in the end, we only have ourselves to know.

Nobody from elsewhere is going to show up and magically fix things. There is no savior on the way. It is entirely up to us and within our power to change what needs to be changed here. There is not anyone anywhere who is going to care about this place and its people more than we do.

Wilcox County’s history has made it and marred it. It created over time – from the start of slavery, on through Reconstruction and throughout the Civil Rights movement – a lot of animosity and fear.

As many upper middle aged and older people from this area know, back years ago white people feared black people being elected to public office after the Voting Rights Act passed in 1964. Black people had animosity towards white people because of the way they had been treated and many feared continued mistreatment.

Armed with the right to vote, an effort began to put black candidates into office.

White people in several Black Belt counties had maintained offices for a time, even with black voters being in the majority, by stuffing ballot boxes with illegal absentee ballots.

So, naturally, black leaders and organizers started absentee voting programs that sought to get more absentee votes than whites.

This was accomplished by sending workers into rural areas to reach voters. They would go into the homes of the old, the sick, the illiterate, and to those they worried would not know on their own how to vote in the best interest of the black community.

This practice is still going on strong today along with vote buying and a few resurrections.

It is not new and it is no secret.

But look at the results.

Look at the fruits of the labor of fraud.

We are dead last.

We can’t continue to follow leaders who are passionate about agendas that no longer apply and that helped bring us to this sad condition we are in today in Wilcox County.

We get publicity for being “one of the poorest places in America” with the highest unemployment rate in the state and an unemployable workforce.

No matter the results of the election – whether it was fair or whether it will be contested – from here maybe we can go onward and upward as a community united and focused on what is best for everyone. Because we are never going back…and we can’t get any lower.

Amanda Walker is a columnist with The West Alabama Watchman, al.com, and The Wilcox Progressive Era. Follow her at https://www.facebook.com/AmandaWalker.Columnist.