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‘We will not be silenced’
Thousands march to protect
right to vote in New Orleans

When they tried to take away their vote, the people rose up and protested. As law-abiding citizens they felt they had a right to make their wishes known at the ballot box. No, this is not colonial America. This is happening in 2006.

In the aftermath of last summer’s Hurricane Katrina disaster, thousands of New Orleans residents were evacuated to surrounding cities and states, not allowed to return to their homes.

On top of having their roots ripped out from beneath them and forced to find jobs and temporary homes for their families, these evacuees were then told they would not be allowed to vote in the mayor’s race in their own hometown.

Thousand of protesters rose to fight for them. Political, religious and labor leaders, along with entertainers and ordinary citizens, swarmed to Louisiana. They demanded the right to return and rebuild New Orleans and the Gulf Coast region, as well as the right to open, free and fair elections where all have equal access to the ballot. The march was on April 1, but the joke was on the legislators who tried to silence those who had already lost too much.

Rev. Jesse Jackson, president of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, led the march along with Rev. Al Sharpton, president of the National Action Network. The UAW sponsored a bus which brought union members from the Jackson, Miss., area along with NAACP members, Nissan workers and local community leaders. On the day of the march, management at the Nissan plant in Canton, Miss., suddenly scheduled the workers for mandatory overtime, preventing many of them from attending. This did not deter all of them.

The march proceeded from the convention center parking lot to the Tchoupitoulas ramp of the HOV Crescent City Connection Bridge. It was on this bridge that many died in the hurricane, and where helicopters dropped water to those perishing alone in the aftermath.

The procession continued more than three miles to the site of a press conference where the marchers’ message was spoken loud and clear to all who would listen. And it was heard.
All citizens, whether evacuated or not, would be allowed to vote. Many of these citizens had family members who died, homes that were washed away or lives torn out from underneath them. They remained ignored and neglected by a government that turned the other way. They would no longer be ignored.