We’ve Got To Try: By Beto O’Rourke
How the fight for voting rights makes everything else possible.
From the cover:
In We’ve Got to Try, Beto O’Rourke shines a spotlight on the heroic life and work of Dr. Lawrence Arron Nixon and the West Texas town where he made his stand. With heart, eloquence, and powerful story-telling, O’Rourke weaves together Nixon’s story with those of other great Texans who changed the course of voting rights and improved America’s democracy. While connecting voting rights and democracy to the major issues of our time, O’Rourke also shares what he saw, heard, and learned while on his own journey throughout the 254 counties of his home state. By telling the stories of those he met along the way and bringing us into the epicenter of the current fight against voter suppression, the former El Paso congressman shows just how essential it is that the sacred right to vote is protected and that we each do our part to save democracy for generation to come.
Why should you read this book?
We’ve Got to Try is a mantra we all need to have. It was the same mantra of the many black men and women who fought for their own civil rights while facing suppression and violence. It didn’t matter how much resistance they faced, they continued to try until they finally succeeded. Their success changed the course of history. This book reminds us of their sacrifice, of the pain they endured, the lives that were lost, all so we could have the right to vote. Each of us. No matter our race or ethnicity. This book reminds us that we all have a duty to protect this right, but to also use it to share our voice. It reminds us of the power of voting.
Some insights:
For a long time, the only ones who had a say in how our government should run was white land owners. Native Americans, African Americans, women, and immigrants were barred from voting. Yet as time progressed, we’ve had movements fighting for equality. Little by little we’ve passed amendments giving every U.S. citizen more equal rights, including the right to vote.
After the Civil War ended, when slaves were free and black people were given the right to vote, southern states and white supremacist groups found ways to suppress their voices. There were thousands of killings, lynchings, beatings, along with intimidation tactics. Poll taxes and literary tests were given to minorities while white Americans were exempt. For-profit prisons were established to get black Americans out of communities and behind walls where they were used for labor. This became a modified version of slavery.
The movements to overcome the violence, suppression, intimidation, and killings were led by incredible people. People like Ida B. Wells, Septima Clark, Bob Moses, and Martin Luther King Jr.. In 1965, Lyndon B. Johnson passed the Voting Rights Act, ending the many forms of voter suppression.
But in 2013, after decades of protecting voter rights, the Supreme Court moved our progress backwards. Before 2013, States had to clear any voter laws with the Federal Government. Every time a State tried to push for more restrictive voter laws, the Department of Justice denied those laws, deeming them wrong. The rulings of Shelby vs. Holder meant laws didn’t have to be cleared anymore.
Now, we face modern day voter suppression. Many states don’t allow state-issued student IDs to prove your identity, but they allow a handgun license to. Many don’t allow same day registrations or even online registration. Many limit ballet drop-off boxes, some only offer one per county. Some states have closed hundreds of polling places. Some of made shorter windows for early voting. And some allow voter intimidation through “poll watchers” but prohibit snacks or drinks from being passed in long lines. And every state suffers from racial gerrymandering, allowing distracts lines to “pack” or “crack” minority voters.
Excerpt:
“If your is not heard, if your vote is not counted, if your community is not represented, then you will, at a minimum, be less likely to realize the opportunities that this country makes possible; at worst, you will be targeted for and unprotected from some of its most violent abuses.
If we accept that democracy is foundational to our mutual and individual success, then it’s on all of us to save it, restore it, and expand it until every eligible citizen is fully included. We all benefit from democracy when everyone is able to participate in our democracy. Everyone’s in or it doesn’t work.”
About the Author
Beto O’Rourke is a fourth-generation Texan, born and raised in El Paso, where he has served as a small business owner, a city council representative, and a member of Congress. He founded Powered by People, a Texas-based organization that works to expand democracy and produce Democratic victories through voter registration and direct voter engagement.