One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression Is Destroying Our Democracy

by Carol Anderson

But as far as the white power structure in Pickens County was concerned, these women had gotten just what they deserved. Bozeman and Wilder, community leaders who insisted that African Americans had rights, including the right to vote, had “guts” and “nerve.” And that, remarked the newspaper editor, “brought out the worst in white people.” “If they could get out and march at their ages,” sneered one deputy, “they could have done just fine in jail.” Robert Kirksey, a county commissioner, complained, “They constantly harassed public officials … they were always creating disturbances” by showing up at every county commission and school board meeting and having the audacity to ask questions of elected officials. The two activists had pushed for and won better wages for sanitation workers and to have the roads paved “on the black side of town.” But they weren’t done.