Last week at church Elder Casson encouraged everyone in our congregation Wayman Chapel, Bozeman, Montana, to make sure they were registered and to get out and vote! In Montana there are 60,000 native americans and their leaders are also encouraging voter registration and to get out and vote. When I was a child my mother was a precinct captain, and taught my brother and I that we as Black people had to vote. She told us what our people had gone through, including death to have the right to vote. Did you or your pastor talk about voter registration or the importance of voting? I wrote a play called SUMMER of 64 which is about the college students from the north who came to the south to register African-Americans to vote. Whenever the play is performed people cry, they are stunned for many do not know our history. Perhaps if we explain the civil rights movement of the 60's we can use that as motivation for people to vote. What Do you think? Peace with Christ, Rev. Denise Rogers

-- Anonymous, October 07, 2000

Answers

An excellent idea! Our people should be encouraged to vote and to educate themselves on whom to cast their ballots for, because som many of our so-called black leaders ask us to vote for them only because they are black. I have problems with allowing any political party to take my vote for granted. Currently the black vote is assumed to be locked in to one party. As long as that situation exists, we are not really exercising our voting power. For example, the Congressional Black Caucus for the last eight years could have passed or defeated any bill in congress if they had been willing to vote either Republician or Democrat. The late Adam Clayton Powell, a life long democrat did not let partisian politics stop him from exercising his power. For example, he forced John Kennedy to send Robert Kennedy to New York to persuade Rev. Powell to the democrat convention in Los Angeles. John Kennedy could not get the nomination without Powell's help. As a matter of fact, Powell would actively and openly support a republician nominee in order to get what he felt was good for his people. Blessings Pastor Paris

-- Anonymous, October 07, 2000