The TV cast a stark, brutal light over the living room, illuminating my mother’s face as we watched the video of Tyre Nichols’ assault together. She sat next to me, 60-something years old, a woman who has lived through her share of injustice and yet somehow, each time, the pain lands fresh. As the footage played, she shook her head, muttering words that pierced the silence between us: “They didn’t have to do that boy like that.”
Her voice held the weight of every incident, every assault, every silent and not-so-silent act of violence she’s witnessed in her lifetime. There was a world of exhaustion in those words, an unspoken reminder that, in all her years, justice and mercy have too often felt like distant promises, even in moments when they were most desperately needed. As we sat together, it felt like the weight of generations bore down on us, each one grappling with this sickening realization: that for all our progress, so much still remains unchanged.
Moments like these remind me why, as a Black woman, I cannot afford to sit back during an election year. Watching Donald Trump’s influence on our nation—the rhetoric that emboldens hatred, the policies that dig deeper into our wounds—feels like a constant, chilling reliving of the Jim Crow era. It’s a modern-day public lynching, inflicted through policies and powers that harm us in ways that feel calculated and cruel. The phrase echoes in my mind: “He don’t have to do us like that.” Yet, each day, we see him and others in power act as though there’s a silent permission to disregard us, to dismiss the calls for change, and to double down on practices that uphold systemic inequities.
This is why our vote is vital. For Black women, 2024 is not just another election cycle—it’s a reckoning, a moment when we have the opportunity to push back against the tides of racism and misogyny that are dressed up as politics as usual. Voting isn’t just a right; it’s a tool of survival, a way of demanding acknowledgment and respect, of claiming the justice that our mothers and grandmothers dreamed of but often never saw. It’s our chance to hold leaders accountable and to say, Enough is enough.
The struggles that my mother has endured, and that I have witnessed, fuel my determination to make sure that my voice, my vote, and my resolve count. Watching that video reminded me of our pain, but it also reminded me of our resilience. Black women have always been a powerful force in our nation’s history. Our votes have led to shifts in policies, inspired movements, and disrupted the status quo. We are a force to be reckoned with—and this election is no different.
In 2024, we must stand together, casting our ballots not just as citizens, but as stewards of a legacy that demands to be seen, heard, and honored. We must channel our anger, our grief, and yes, our hope, into action. We vote because we cannot watch another generation inherit the same brutal realities. We vote to demand a future where Black lives matter in every sense, and where justice is not just a word spoken but a right lived.
This year, as we approach the polls, let’s remember my mother’s words: “They didn’t have to do that boy like that.” Those words are both a painful reminder and a call to action, urging us forward. We vote because we know we deserve better—and we are determined to see a world that reflects that truth.
Kirstin Cheers is the deputy director of public relations at KQ Communications. She holds a master’s in communications studies from the university of Memphis. She lives in Memphis, TN.
By Khortlan Becton, JD, MTS, The Restorative Education Institute (1)
To say the world is in the throes of a technological revolution spearheaded by artificial intelligence (“AI”), and automation, may be one of the most understated observations of this century. While “Fake News” ran rampant on social and other media and influenced the November 2016 presidential election, that election provided ample warning of how media manipulated to mislead can have enormous negative consequences for every segment of life, including personal and employment relationships, national security, elections, media, etc.
Mollie A. Steward is a retired Professor of Mathematics from Southern New Jersey. Proudly multiracial, she is the daughter of an educator and a brick mason and notes her family has always valued education. She loves writing poetry, and frequent themes are inclusiveness and unity; the concept for this poem grew from musings on those topics.
Thomas Healey, Professor at Seton Hall Law School, brings us Soul City: Race, Equality, and the Lost Dream of an American Utopia, a 2021 Hooks National Book Award finalist.
Kat Robinson began as a Hooks Institute Graduate Assistant in September 2022. Robinson is completing a dual-degree program in the School of Public Health and the Department of Anthropology. As a student at the University of Memphis, Robinson has participated in various student-led organizations, most notably Safety Net and the Diversity and Inclusion committee in the Anthropology Department. As a member of these organizations, Robinson learned the importance of organizing and working with community members to strive for equity and safety for students and Memphians.
Fannie Lou Hamer’s story captures the contributions of a Black woman sharecropper with limited formal education and limited material resources—but an all-consuming passion for social justice. Born in Mississippi on October 6, 1917, Hamer was the youngest of twenty children. The granddaughter of enslaved people, Hamer worked as a sharecropper for much of her life. At the age of twelve, she concluded her studies at a local schoolhouse so she could help her family meet their growing financial pressures. Still, they remained trapped in poverty—the result of the exploitative nature of the sharecropping system and the violence used to maintain it. The difficulties of Hamer’s childhood extended well into adulthood. Despite her limited material resources and the various challenges she endured as a Black woman living in poverty in Mississippi, Hamer committed herself to make a difference in the lives of others.
A cradle-to-grave biography, Walk with Me: A Biography of Fannie Lou Hamer explores the transformative life of Fannie Lou Hamer, from her early life picking cotton alongside her parents in Montgomery County, Mississippi through her later years as a voting rights activist until her death in 1977. Hamer used her experiences from sharecropping at 12 years old to revolutionize voting rights across the South; witnessing first-hand the discrimination and racism that Black people faced in the South, Hamer sought out like-minded individuals interested in justice and equity. With only a 6th-grade education, Hamer was a unique figure among her contemporaries like Dr. Martin L. King or Russell B. Sugarmon — and used her uniqueness to lead the voting rights movement into a direction it needed to go, against tremendous odds.