Our ability to participate in government, to elect our leaders and to improve our lives is contingent upon our ability to access the ballot. We know in our heart of hearts that voting is a sacred right - the fount from which all other rights flow.
Interpretation
Voting is a fundamental right that enables citizens to influence their government and improve their lives.
Stacey Abrams emphasizes the critical role of voting as a cornerstone of democracy. She posits that the ability to participate in government and elect leaders is intimately tied to the accessibility of the ballot, framing voting as a sacred right that is essential for the protection and exercise of all other rights. By asserting that voting is the source from which other rights flow, Abrams advocates for the importance of safeguarding this process and ensuring that all individuals can engage in it freely.
In practice
During a civic engagement workshop, to inspire young people to register to vote.
I grew up one of six children with working-class parents in the Deep South. My mother was a college librarian, and my father worked in a shipyard. I never saw them balance a checkbook, but they kept a roof over our heads and got all six of us into college.
I do not Google myself, I do not read comments, and I barely look myself in the eye when I look in the mirror.
My being a black woman is not a deficit. It is a strength. Because I could not be where I am had I not overcome so many other barriers. Which means you know I'm relentless, you know I'm persistent, and you know I'm smart.
The basis for sustainable progress is legal protections grounded in an awareness of how identity has been used to deny opportunity.
I like to solve problems. I know it is a skill set, but it's also an obligation. I grew up with parents who believe that you don't simply complain: you try to find solutions and fix what's in front of you.
Here in Georgia, we continue to grapple with our own vestiges of hate. The image carved into Stone Mountain, like Confederate monuments across this state, stand as constant reminders of racism, intolerance, and division.
Did the mass of men know the actual selfishness and injustice of their rulers, not a government would stand a year. - The world would foment with revolution.
Big corporations have money and power to make sure every rule breaks their way; people have voices and votes to push back.
The legal right of the Southern people to reclaim their fugitives I have constantly admitted. The legal right of Congress to interfere with their institution in the states, I have constantly denied.
The three branches of government number considerably more than three and are not, in any sense, 'branches' since that would imply that there is something they are all attached to besides self-aggrandizement and our pocketbooks. ... Government is not a machine with parts; it's an organism. When does an intestine quit being an intestine and start becoming an asshole?
You know, there is a long tradition in the U.S. of, um, promoting elections up to the point that you get an outcome you don't like. Look at Latin America in the Cold War.
The power of the State must be invoked for restoring economic freedom just as it has been invoked for destroying economic freedom.
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