“What Does Voting Mean To You?” This question is posed to the public at a voting rights exhibit (“From Barriers to Ballots”) at Arlington’s Central Library. The exhibit provides an opportunity to learn important history about voting rights, involving national, state, and local stories. The most fascinating part to me is to see how people respond to that question about voting. 

The question is listed on cards at the exhibit, asking people to submit their answer. Several cards are chosen to be posted as part of the exhibit. Here are some of my favorite answers: 

– It means I am a participant in my democracy, not just an observer. Being a participant in the process of governance. 

– On election day I remember John Robinson riding through the neighborhood with a bullhorn reminding everyone to vote.  

– Voting is a thank you to the women who came before me, a promise to those after me. 

– Voting is both an obligation to those who fought and sacrificed for my right, and an opportunity to effect the change I want to see. 

The exhibit includes a section highlighting three people from Arlington: John Robinson, Gertrude Crocker, and Portia Haskins. Crocker was jailed three times during the Wilson Administration for picketing outside the White House for women’s voting rights. Crocker was sent to the infamous Lorton prison, where she took part in a hunger strike that left her severely ill. 

John Robinson was a lifelong resident in the Green Valley neighborhood, with an extensive record of activism starting in the 1960s. He enthusiastically encouraged voter participation (as indicated in one of the comments above). Robinson founded and was director of the Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center in Green Valley for over 40 years. In 2020 the town square in Green Valley was named after him. 

In the 1960s Portia Haskins, a Hall’s Hill resident, took part in sit-in protests in Arlington, and worked with the NAACP and Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). Haskins successfully challenged the poll tax as the plaintiff in a landmark lawsuit that struck down the poll tax. 

The poll tax was a huge obstacle to voting. One challenging aspect was that it required payment for the prior three years, but the most pernicious requirement was that payment had to be made six months in advance. Many people showed up on election day and were denied the right to vote, even if they had the money to pay the tax. The NAACP worked tirelessly over the decades to inform people of these requirements. There was a flyer from 1951 with explicit instructions on how to get registered in time. Another flyer succinctly stated, “If you don’t vote in Arlington, you don’t count in Arlington.” 

In addition to the poll tax lawsuit, another successful voting rights lawsuit came out of Arlington during the 1960s.  Harrison Mann, one of our state delegates at the time, was the named plaintiff in a lawsuit that went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. This case became known as the “One Person, One Vote” case. The attorney was Edmund Campbell, a longtime community activist. 

This lawsuit involved Virginia’s history of disproportionate representation in the General Assembly that discriminated against the more populous parts of the state, such as Arlington. A House of Delegates district in southern Virginia had only 14,829 people, while a district in the Arlington/Fairfax area had 106,092 people. The Virginia system was based in part on land area, which led Campbell to utter a terrific sentence in his oral argument: “Acres don’t vote; it’s only people that vote.” In writing the opinion for the Court, ruling in Arlington’s favor, Chief Justice Earl Warren stole Campbell’s line with a similar quote: “Legislators represent people, not trees or acres.” 

We are fortunate that, in Arlington’s history, many people worked to create an opportunity for all to vote, and to be represented in a fair manner. I encourage you to check out the exhibit. And remember, early voting starts soon. To quote the NAACP flyer: “If you don’t vote in Arlington, you don’t count in Arlington.”