Change.org - Voter suppression

As a Black woman, Shirley has experienced discrimination ever since she was a child. She knows the entirety of the Black community has experienced this—especially when it comes to voting. Now, there are 50 bills in the Texas legislature to increase voter suppression. Shirley lives in Texas and knows these bills cannot pass. She’s asking you to stand with her and sign her petition against voter suppression in Texas. Texas- DO NOT follow in Georgia’s footsteps! Stop voter suppression NOW! 1,102 have signed Monica Watkins’s petition. Let’s get to 1,500!

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My name is Dr. Shirley Tucker Wallace Ed.D. and I am a nurse by profession. I’m also a founding member of Women Who Have Impact Power in Walker County, Texas and we created this petition to contribute to the fight to end voter suppression in my home state. I love to learn more about what’s going on in our community and I love to learn how I can be of a benefit. Seems like we’ve always had difficulty and division in Walker County.  Things happen and people don’t seem to care about us. When I say "us", I mean the black community. There was always a difference. In my youth, we had to go to the side or the back door to get service, while white folks walked in the front door. When I went away to college and schools were integrated fully, I learned a lot. You know, we were intimidated to think that our brains were not as smart or as good as those of white students and I was in college when I found, wait a minute, I’m just as smart if not smarter than some of the other people, but it’s just the way we were treated in Walker County, Texas. We were the "lesser citizens" here and we didn’t have a lot of input in 1965. I got interested in civil rights work because of voter suppression back then. There was the discussion about "Do we (Black People) have the right to vote?". The United States passed the The Voting Rights Act of 1965,  a landmark piece of federal legislation in the United States that prohibits racial discrimination in voting. The Supreme Court came in later on in 2013 and struck down a formula at the heart of Voting Rights Act – now voters who are discriminated against bear the burden of proving they are disenfranchised. This was not right?! And here we are in 2021, and we’re still in the same situation. I signed the petition and I’ve asked my friends and everyone I know to sign the petition to not make Senate Bill 7 (SB7) into a law. This is not right! It is discriminating to me and is taking me way back to when the U.S. government told me what to do and how to think as a citizen. I’m intelligent enough to say, I know what I can do and I know what responsibilities I have! So, I am not going to allow this. It’s not going to happen. We’ve been through so much as a community of color, we’ve come a long way. BUT WE HAVE A LONG WAY TO GO! The Texas Senate and House currently have over 50 pieces of legislation pending that, if approved into law, will return our state back to the terrible time of the Jim Crow era.  Texas does not want to follow in the footsteps of Georgia and allow our state legislature to pass bills that would limit ballot access, potentially confuse voters and give more power to Republican lawmakers.Current bills pending in the legislature, such as SB7 Senate Bill 7, are designed and will have the effect of making African-Americans and other minorities into second class citizens.  All of these bills are designed to reduce our voter participation through intimidation, discrimination and mistreating members of our community as exampled by: eliminating Souls to the Polls (an organization that unites ministers and their congregations to strengthen the voting power of the Black community), reduction of voting sites and voting hours, will cause the number of voting machines in minority communities in urban counties to have fewer voting machines at their polling sites and many other minority suppression efforts. Please sign this petition that we are sending to our local Walker County Representation - Texas Senate District 5 (Senator Charles Schwertner). Our Civil Rights History has proven that ONE VOICE CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE! PLEASE LET YOUR VOICE BE HEARD!

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