After a rainy morning, the sun came out as we gathered around Susan B. Anthony’s gravesite on Mt. Hope cemetery. There were some thirty of us, three-generation families, some veterans of vigils, several children and baby Dror, at four months, in a stroller. We held a vigil for justice during the infamous week of a Senate sham investigation, and just two days before the Republicans voted to put Brett Kavanaugh, an accused sexual assaulter, on the Supreme Court.
We chose Mt. Hope cemetery because in every corner of this land there are statues, monuments and cemeteries reminding us of a long history of struggle for democracy. In places around the country there have been Americans who have acted with courage and determination to make the Declaration of Independence a social reality for all. And so we chose to have our vigil at the Susan B. Anthony gravesite.
In 1872 Anthony and a group of women broke the law and cast a ballot in the presidential election in our city of Rochester. Two weeks later, she was arrested, and the following year, she was found guilty of illegal voting. There were at that time the likes of Trump, McConnell, Graham and the rest, who resisted a woman right to full citizenship, to a voice and choice. Those who opposed women’s rights hung Susan B. Anthony’s effigy, mocked and ridiculed her and threatened her life.
Betrayal of justice has taken an ugly turn again in this administration and in full view. Republican senators have preferred expediency as they voted to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. Senator Susan Collins gave a forty-five minute talk justifying her “yes” vote, in which she included a disgraceful shaming of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford. The country and the world watched as an American president mocked and denigrated Dr. Blasey Ford, a victim of sexual assault, in front of a wildly cheering mob. This has been Trump’s terrifying mob shouting “lock her up.” Trump’s mob is not his alone; it belongs to the Republicans, to Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham. They are the gang of senators that assist the president as he is wrecking American democracy. We watch this moral eclipse at the pinnacle of political power with profound dismay and anger.
American democracy was founded in resistance to British tyranny. And we recall generations of civil rights leaders and everyday folks who pulled America away from its own internal tyranny of privileged rich white men. In moments of failure in Washington we protest in places hallowed by people of courage like Susan B. Anthony. Vigils are as American as apple pie, inscribed in the First Amendment as “the right of the people…to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
Vigils mean that we are not asleep, nor blind, nor deaf. We know injustice when we see it. In the tradition of the Declaration we protest the corruption, cruelty, and indecency that have become the signature of this administration.
It is our patriotic duty to invoke democracy after the Republicans’ tyrannical confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh. We held our vigil in light of the Supreme Court debacle, in honor of brave women voices, in hope of moral leadership and justice. Vigils are the first step. The next thing that we must do as citizens is to vote. We need to put our energies in getting out the vote for candidates who stand up for justice for all.
Susan B. Anthony wrote, “if I could but live another century and see the fruition of all the work for women! There is so much yet to be done.” Her fight prevailed. Women’s vote became the law of the land in 1920. Now we are charged to do our part in the November election and there is so much yet to be done. In big cities and small communities, in upstate New York and all over this land we must vote for justice, compassion, and human rights.