When justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe. – Frederick Douglass

Midterm elections 2018 is about three weeks away, and already signs of voter suppression and intimidation are popping up in communities of color in America.

Georgia Government officials told about 40 black senior citizens to get off a bus, run by the group Black Voters Matter, that was to transport them to vote on Monday, the first day of in-person early voting in the state. The reason cited was that the event was political. Isn’t voting by definition political?

The senior citizens deboarded the bus and thus did not vote Monday. What laws were violated in them seeking to vote early in Augusta? Black folks are used to white people trampling on our rights. While the seniors pledged to get to the voting booth, why couldn’t they vote on Monday? Were white seniors prevented from voting?

Jefferson County Administrator Adam Brett said the trip, set to depart from a county-run senior center, was political and therefore violated guidelines imposed on county-sponsored events, the AJC reported. Although Black Voters Matter is a nonpartisan organization, Jefferson County Democratic Party Chairwoman Diane Evans helped organize the event.

Officials “felt uncomfortable with allowing senior center patrons to leave the facility in a bus with an unknown third party,” Brett told the AJC. “No seniors at the Jefferson County senior center were denied their right to vote.”

A representative for the Jefferson County Board of Commissioners did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s request for comment.

Questions:

1. Why were they ORDERED off the bus?
2. Is it illegal for black adults to organize a bus to transport them to vote?
3. Isn’t voting political and legal?

Read the full story at  Georgia County Orders Elderly Black Voters Off Bus Taking Them To The Polls

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Georgia County Orders Elderly Black Voters Off Bus Taking Them To The Polls

KKK Groups Still Active in These States in 2017

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Another story in the news is of the first black woman legislator in Vermont, Bernie Sanders home state, intimidated by death threats to the point of resignation and hiding with her family.  She was going to run unopposed in the upcoming 2018 mid-term election but now will not be on the ballot.

Where were the Democrats or feminist groups offering protection and support? Probably helping to write death threats to get her off the ballot. More importantly, where was law enforcement in Vermont? Probably turning their heads and delivering the death threats.  That is shameful!

It’s not healthy for people of color to live in such a biased and duplicitous environment. We have no protection when local whites or racist government officials decide to blackball services that threaten our lives. Again, what did Vermont law enforcement do to protect her?

Kiah Morris, the first Vermont black legislator, and her family were left out as food for the animals to feed. She resigned as both parties desired.

Kiah Morris, the first black woman to ever serve in Vermont’s state legislature, is speaking out about her decision to resign in late September after facing repeated harassment — including acts of intimidation at her home that forced her and her husband, who was recovering from heart surgery, to flee to a different town. Morris, who was first elected in 2014 and won re-election in 2016, announced that she wouldn’t seek reelection this year — despite running unopposed — after facing vandalism, death threats that were seen by her young son, and a break-in to her home while her family was present. Despite her declaring her intent to leave office, intimidation from angry youths who would pound on her house’s windows and doors at night continued until she and her husband, who was recovering from heart surgery, were forced to flee her home in Bennington and move to another town.

“There’s obviously online harassment that can happen, and that’s a part of our social media world right now, but then when things started happening in everyday life, that’s when it becomes really worrisome and terrifying,” she told The Associated Press. “That’s the worst part about this. I realized, in seeing what’s happened over the last few years … seeing that our system is not set up in a way to protect someone like me, I cannot be the legislator that I want to be. I cannot speak my truths in a way that need to have been said. I cannot do these things and be secure, be assured of safety for me and my family.”

The lack of action from police to protect her and her family, she added, was shameful.

Read the full story at 1st black woman legislator in Vermont resigns after white supremacists threaten safety of her family

America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future. ― Frederick Douglass