Preachers Evoke Civil Rights Struggle for Votes

Preachers Evoke Civil Rights Struggle for Votes, midterm elections

Pulling out all stops to boost black participation in Tuesday's election, black preachers told churchgoers that neglecting to vote is a strike against the civil rights struggles of the past:

"Go to the polls Tuesday in the name of our ancestors," Rev. Raphael G. Warnock (pictured above) told those gathered at Ebenezer Baptist Church (pictured below) in Atlanta, where civil rights icon Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. held services.

Warnock told churchgoers that no voting is equal to committing a sin, according to an Associated Press report. "Know that your ballot is a blood-stained ballot," he said. "This is a sacred obligation."

Other black ministers around the country also spread a get-out-the-vote message with their congregations Sunday.

But the problem is that they are literally preaching to the choir.

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Many of those in church are already likely to vote.

Preachers need to get beyond the door of their churches to communicate that voting is a sacred duty and also to persuade folks to take less than an hour out of their day to participate in the electoral process.

We all know people who were swept up in the Obama craze two years ago. Maybe it was their first time getting involved in politics to such an extent. Well, where are they now?

Are they still engaged in the political process? Do they realize that if the House or Senate goes to Republicans on Tuesday, President Obama's political agenda will likely get stalled and steamrolled during his final two years in office.

Or are they back on the political sidelines, bemoaning the fact that they still don't have a job and their house value continue to tumble?

Obama has had two years to fix eight years of failed federal policy. It would be a shame if black people who helped get him elected turned their backs on him now.

Conservative political pundits are salivating at the prospect of black America staying home in droves during this election. For them, mass black voter apathy would confirm their beliefs that we can't get really excited for an election unless we see someone we can identify with (a black person) on the ballot.

It would be great to prove the conservatives wrong, but only time will tell if we can do it.