What We Honor. What We Carry Forward.

This Tuesday is sacred to me. Not because one vote will fix everything. It won’t. But voting is a right so many people have fought for, and one we should never take for granted.

When this country began, states set the rules for who could vote, and many people were shut out. In 1870, the Fifteenth Amendment said men could not be denied the vote because of race. Black voters still faced violence, poll taxes, literacy tests, and intimidation. In 1920, the Nineteenth Amendment barred denying women the vote because of sex, but many women of color continued to face barriers. In 1924, Congress granted U.S. citizenship to Native Americans who had not already received it, but some states still kept Native people from voting. The Twenty-Fourth Amendment banned poll taxes in federal elections in 1964. The Voting Rights Act followed in 1965. In 1971, the Twenty-Sixth Amendment lowered the voting age to 18.

Even after voting rights were written into law, people had to keep fighting to make those rights real. A law on paper doesn’t enforce itself. That’s why we have to keep protesting on our bridges after the midterms, holding our elected officials accountable and insisting that they honor the rights and promises they are responsible for protecting.

As I approach Tuesday, I feel solemn and grateful. I feel that I owe a debt of gratitude to so many who came before us. And that brings me to the Bridge Brigade.

What our incredible team has accomplished over the past year and a half is nothing short of miraculous. The fact that our brigaders are still this fired up, this committed, and this passionate about defending democracy after all this time frankly makes me tear up.

Please remember that you are part of history. Someday, people may read about this moment and the people who stood up for democracy on NH’s bridges. What we’ve done together has been extraordinary. I will think of each of you when I vote on Tuesday.

Our job isn’t done on Election Day. You can bet we’ll be back on our bridges beginning November 8. We still have a lot to do through January and through the Presidential Elections. We are doing sacred work.

See you on the bridges.