Does My Voice Count: Voter Suppression Then and Now

Photographer and Panel Discussion:
* Wednesday, February 6, 11:00 am – 12:30 pm

Exhibit Dates:  February 1 – April 30

[Pictured: Tylertown, MS, 1965. An elderly gentleman registering to vote for the first time in his long life.]

In 1965, the Voting Rights Act was enacted marking the beginning of the end of voter suppression and disenfranchisement of blacks and people of color in the U.S.

Within weeks, the National Student Association, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, and the Congress of Racial Equality issued a call to students to come to Mississippi to help register black voters during the 1965 Christmas vacation. It was called Mississippi Freedom Christmas.

Jim Lemkin, a volunteer photographer for SNCC, traveled the rural roads of Tylertown, Mississippi with a group of northern college students getting the word out that voter suppression was now illegal.

Against a backdrop of southern resentment and hostility, students went door to door informing black residents of Walthall County that they could now register to vote (most for the first time in their lives) and bringing them to a Federal registrar to complete the voter registration process.

Sponsored by the Umoja Community of College of Marin.