The Vote Is Our Voice. Keep Speaking!

On this Election Day...

Today is Ohio's May Primary Election Day. Polls are open until 7:30 PM. I pray we take some time to vote today, and if we have already voted, to encourage someone else to do the same.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was one of the most important civil rights laws ever passed. In 2013, the Supreme Court's Shelby County v. Holder decision dismantled its heart, stripping federal oversight from states with the longest histories of voter discrimination. Last week, the Court went further. On April 29, 2026, in Louisiana v. Callais, the Supreme Court gutted Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, the provision designed to protect Black voters and other voters of color from racial discrimination at the polls. As Justice Kagan wrote in dissent, the ruling renders Section 2 "all but a dead letter."

This is another reminder that we cannot, and should not, take any of our rights for granted. They are not guaranteed. There are forces continuously working to erode and suppress our votes because they know how powerful our votes are.

Therefore, please remember, "the vote is our voice". May each of us "speak" with a united sense of urgency and conviction in this season.

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I pray that we allow these five prophetic voices to stir us towards sustained action:

"Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will." — Frederick Douglass

"Is this America, the land of the free and the home of the brave, where we have to sleep with our telephones off the hooks because our lives be threatened daily, because we want to live as decent human beings, in America?" — Fannie Lou Hamer

"The vote is precious. It is almost sacred. It is the most powerful non-violent tool we have in a democracy." — John Lewis

"A vote is a civic sacrament." — Father Theodore Hesburgh

"Voting is not only our right... It is our power." — Loung Ung