Oh, the perils of Facebook, the only social media site of which I'm a member. Twitter, Instagram, and all the others can do without me.
Facebook is enough, believe me. As those of you who've followed me on Facebook may be aware, I've been known to stir up a contentious dust storm of debate every now and then. Especially when it comes to the arena of politics.
Lots of my Facebook friends have posted on their own pages about how they steer clear of political issues, and hey, that's fine. I understand their decision. Who has the time?
Well, me, I guess.
I just can't help myself.
Although I've never really gotten seriously involved in a political campaign, I am, and will continue to be a political animal.
It began a long time ago, right after I registered, and was then able to cast my very first vote.
That would have been in Mississippi's 1975 gubernatorial election. Oh, I was so excited!
My mother was a school teacher and never missed voting in any election, national, state or local. She instilled in me the importance of voting.
Born in the late ‘20s, as she grew into adulthood, my mother never took her hard-earned right to vote for granted.
Understandably so. I was raised during some of the most turbulent years of the Civil Rights movement.
When my mother was coming of age, African-Americans had to literally fight for the right to vote.
Some of them even sacrificed their lives in that struggle.
I will always remember my mother talking about how difficult officials at Hattiesburg's Forrest County Courthouse made it for her and other blacks to register.
All kinds of discriminatory roadblocks where thrown in their paths. To this day, one Forrest County official, who was mentioned often by my mother, stands out in my mind.
That would be Theron Lynd, then circuit clerk for Forrest County, elected to office in 1959.
Mr. Lynd did everything within his power to deny African-American residents of Hattiesburg and Forrest County the right to vote.
I remember one of the stories my mother told, of how Mr. Lynd worked to block blacks from being able to participate in the voting process.
Besides simply refusing to answer their questions at the courthouse about the registration form, he employed another tactic.
Mr. Lynd would select the most difficult sections of Mississippi's state constitution and demand black applicants interpret that section. Supposedly, he did it in an effort to test their "literacy." (My mother had already earned a college degree from Tougaloo College, near Jackson.)
Back in 1961, Hattiesburg was then, as it is now, the economic powerhouse for south central Mississippi.
The 1960 U.S. census recorded our city's population at 34,989. Black residents made up about 32 percent of that number.
I was barely a toddler, so I wouldn't have been a voter. But considering the city's total black population, doing a little math would show there should have been thousands of adult African-Americans on the county's voter rolls.
But in 1961, of Hattiesburg's 35,000 residents, there were only 25. That's right, 25 blacks registered to vote.
Obviously, Mr. Lynd's efforts to keep African-Americans off the voter rolls were paying off.
The federal government eventually got involved with legal action to thwart Mr. Lynd's unlawful tactics.
In 1960, he refused to open the county's records to government officials, who ended up filing a federal lawsuit against him.
The following year, Lynd was found guilty of violating the Civil Rights Act of 1957.
Still, federal district judge Harold Cox, himself an avowed racist, refused to force Lynd to comply with the government order.
In 1962, the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals overruled Judge Cox, paving the way for every citizen of Forrest County, regardless of race, the right to vote.
It perturbs me how so many young African-Americans aren't aware of the struggle, the price that was paid all those years ago for them to have the right to vote.
By the time I turned 18, getting registered was one of my first priorities. I didn't even have a driver’s license yet, but I sure did want my voter registration card.
As noted, it was Mississippi's 1975 gubernatorial election when I excitedly voted for the first time.
Sadly, the candidate I voted for lost.
This may surprise some people, but I cast my first vote for the Republican candidate, Gil Carmichael, of Meridian.
I was so upset when he lost.
I even found a way to get Mr. Carmichael on the phone and tell him how sorry I was that he hadn't carried the day.
Don't ask me how I pulled that one off, but I somehow managed to reach Mr. Carmichael at home.
Back then, I wasn't so aware of the difference between Republicans and Democrats. I liked Mr. Carmichael's stands on the issues, and he seemed to be such a good man.
I decided he was the best choice for me, and for the state of Mississippi. In fact, I can still remember his campaign slogan, "It's not too late for Mississippi. It's just time."
Carmichael ran against Democrat Cliff Finch. Things were totally different back then. Fifty years ago, the Democrat "D" behind a candidate's name was an assurance of victory in Mississippi's statewide elections.
Today, the exact opposite is true. The "D" most often stands for "defeat." (That transformation alone is worth further discussion.)
Mr. Finch squeaked by in a fairly close election, winning just 52 percent of the vote. There was also a black candidate running for governor that year, Henry Kirksey.
But even then, I didn't vote for a candidate just because he was of the same race as me (something I've been accused of during one of my many political kerfuffles on Facebook).
My candidate may have lost, but after casting that very fist vote, I was hooked.
On politics, on voting, and on the political process.
Ever since that first election day for me, back in 1975, I've never forgone my duty, my responsibility as an American citizen, to vote.
Mississippi has statewide elections coming up next week.
And, probably like many of you, I'm already weary of the nonstop political ads, running between the commercial breaks when I'm trying to watch Jeopardy!
It's early yet, too.
These are only the primaries, the preliminaries before the main event, the general election in November.
(Sigh.)
If you're waiting for me to confess who I'll be voting for next week, nope, that's not going to happen.
For once, I'm one of those undecided voters you hear so much about every Presidential election year.
In fact, I haven't even decided if I'll choose a Democrat or Republican ballot.
The only thing I've decided on is that I will be voting.
I do it in memory of my mother and of all those people, black and white, who worked so hard for me to have this simple right as an American citizen...to VOTE.
See you at the polls next week.
Now in the meantime, let me get back to seeing who is beating me up this week on Facebook.
Elijah Jones is a writer and a proud graduate of the Hattiesburg Public School System and the University of Southern Mississippi. Drop him an email: edjhubtown@aol.com.
