Wendell Pierce: There’s blood on the ballot
26th August 2024 · 0 Comments
By C.C. Campbell-Rock
Contributing Writer
“Greetings from Louisiana. Mister Secretary, my name is Wendell Pierce, and I’m a proud son of Louisiana,” the famous actor declared during roll call at the 2024 Democratic National Convention.
Pierce introduced Louisiana Congressman Troy Carter, who said Louisiana casts its 47 delegate votes to “support democracy.” “We stand in line for a more perfect union,” Carter added.
Pierce also uplifted his birth city, New Orleans, commonly called “The Big Easy,” where he is part owner of Equity Media, which owns WBOK 1230 AM Radio, the oldest Black radio station in the region.
“Born of democracy was The Big Easy, the northernmost Caribbean city, and the last bohemian was jazz,” he said, speaking of the legacy that came after the Louisiana Purchase. Pierce then personally nominated Harris, saying, “I’m casting my personal vote for Kamala Harris.”
Pierce, 59, appeared in TV’s “The Wire,” “Treme,” “Suits,” “Jack Ryan,” “Raising Kanan” and “Elsbeth,” and the films “Ray,” “Selma,” and many other television series and movies. The award-winning actor also starred in the classic “Death of A Salesman,” on Broadway. He is currently filming “Superman” as Perry White, the editor of the “Daily Planet.”
Louisiana Democratic Party Chair Randal Gaines, New Orleans City Council President Helena Moreno, Public Service Commissioner Davante Lewis, and other delegates stood with Pierce.
Pierce’s interview with MSNBC’s Joy Reid also went viral. He spoke about lessons learned from his parents: “You have to exercise our right of self-determination. This could not be a more profound time to ensure our democracy is protected and our rights and freedoms are held onto, and then we’ll make history, too,” he advised Reid. He shared that he joined the campaign a year ago and helped raise money for the Biden-Harris ticket.
Pierce told The Louisiana Weekly, “There is blood on the ballot,” and Black voters, especially those who would vote for Trump, should remember those who died and fought for them to have the vote.
As for the Democratic Party not courting Black voters in some southern states, Pierce points to the fact that 30-33 percent of the voting population is Black. “Imagine if we exercised that right to vote; we would have such an impact.”
Pierce offered Mike Espy of Mississippi as proof that the Southern states could elect candidates for Congress. Espy almost won a U.S. Senate seat but lost it by a few points. The “Party did not give him the resources because they thought that we couldn’t win that seat from such a red Southern state,” he explained.
The actor believes that in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and even Florida, there are Black voting blocs that, if they were educated about what their votes could do, more elections could be won. He also said DNC Chair Jamie Harrison knows the need to invest in Southern states and has a plan.
During his interview with Reid, Pierce also encouraged Black men to throw their support behind Harris’ bid for the Oval, saying that no Black man should have any issue supporting Black women.
“Any Black man that has an issue with a Black woman rising, they have to look at their own inadequacy,” Pierce said to Reid. “What would make you so fearful of someone who was so beloved of you, who was so loving to you, like your mother and your grandmother and your aunts and your sisters, that you cannot be proud and embolden yourself when you see someone from your community rise up?”
To that sentiment, Pierce was disappointed that there wasn’t enough deference paid to Fannie Lou Hamer, the historic voting rights advocate who was beaten, jailed and lost her job for trying to vote.
Congresswoman Maxine Waters mentioned her, but there should have been a video package on her too because on August 22, 1964, exactly sixty years to the day Vice President Kamala Harris accepted the presidential nomination, Hamer and her delegation were denied a seat at the same convention. Hamer was denied her constitutional right to vote by the “Dixiecrats when our country was sick (with racism). They left the Democratic Party and went to the other,” Pierce confirmed.
Fannie Lou Hamer, a leader of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, testified before the credentials committee of the Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, N.J., on Aug. 22, 1964, as her racially integrated group challenged the seating of the all-white Mississippi delegation, according to U.S. News & World Report.
Hamer, a true freedom fighter, spoke about her firing from a plantation job for trying to register to vote and being brutalized in jail for being a voting rights advocate. The following is a part of her speech before the DNC on that fateful day.
“It was the 31st of August in 1962 that eighteen of us traveled twenty-six miles to the county courthouse in Indianola to try to register to become first-class citizens. We was met in Indianola by policemen, Highway Patrolmen, and they only allowed two of us in to take the literacy test at the time. After we had taken this test and started back to Ruleville, we was held up by the City Police and the State Highway Patrolmen and carried back to Indianola where the bus driver was charged that day with driving a bus the wrong color.
“After we paid the fine among us, we continued on to Ruleville, and Reverend Jeff Sunny carried me four miles in the rural area where I had worked as a timekeeper and sharecropper for eighteen years. I was met there by my children, who told me the plantation owner was angry because I had gone down and tried to register.
Pierce said, “Sixty years after Hamer was denied a seat at the DNC, Vice President Harris is poised to win the presidency. Her ascent in being the first Black woman to do so is emblematic of Black talent; it’s Black excellence on display.”
Today, Black Americans are still fighting for their right to vote, but like Maya Angelou’s poem “And Still I Rise,” Black women are leading the way to equal representation and voting rights and following Harris’ lead.
Vice President Kamala Harris told the audience at the DNC that she would sign the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.
While he acknowledged that the race will be close, Pierce believes Harris can win the highest position in the U.S. if Black Americans turn out in large numbers and white women, who make up 48 percent of the voting electorate, cast their ballots for Harris.
When asked about Trump’s claim that he is doing great with Black men, Pierce said, “I don’t believe in that mythology. It’s a part of the narrative.” Black men who are allegedly supporting Trump, those waving signs behind him, specifically, are what Pierce calls “contrarians.”
“They are people who want attention. Some have bought into the allure of the “cult of personality. They want to be seen.”
This article originally published in the August 26, 2024 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
