I found the reading by Hayter to be really interesting. The reading was effective in showing the struggle for voting rights and the effect it had locally in Virginia. The growth of black voting was vital in challenging ideals such as Jim Crow Laws. As Hayter points out, by 1960 the African American Community had out-registered the white community in voting. This promotes changes and tries to challenge the systematic environment we live in. I can connect these challenges and ideas to my own final project that I am working on. I am studying leadership through the handmaid tale, so I am analyzing the misrepresentation of women within government or other leadership positions. Alike to what Hayter is saying, if people do not put themselves in places of power, they do not have the option to change their own fate. Looking at it locally, it was interesting how local voting had large impacts nationally.
Critical Thinking
I agree that Hayter’s piece was interesting. Similar to how metropolitan whites employed various acts to prevent integration in schools, elite white suburbanites used poll taxes, “color-blind” initiatives, and annexation deals to prevent Blacks in Richmond from electing a majority city council, which is an example of how history tends to repeat itself.
I like how you brought in another example of how people who want change have to make it themselves – women. They have the power and the voice to make changes, they just have to make the noise and fight themselves for what they want.