Civil rights activist Carl Snowden speaks in Pocomoke

Fifty years after the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was signed into law, things are not perfect in Pocomoke City.

But the Thursday night event at New Macedonia Baptist Church in Pocomoke City – held on the 50th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act signing on Aug. 6, 1965 — wasn’t focused on politics.

“We’re here to come together,” said Pastor Ronnie White, one of the leaders of Citizens for a Better Pocomoke, which co-hosted the event with the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland.

Pocomoke City Mayor Bruce Morrison, said in speaking to the group that he wasn’t sure how he’d be received at the event, but he said was warmly welcomed.

“That means so much from our community, as your mayor,” he said.

The featured speaker at the event was Carl Snowden, civil rights activist and former civil rights director for the Maryland Attorney General’s Office.

Snowden spoke of how as a young child, he and his friend Tommy saw Tommy’s father, a sharecropper — who they believed had great strength — shoved and spit on by his boss. He recalled never wanting anyone to do something like that to him.

He also spoke of how he met civil rights icon Rosa Parks, who famously would not give up her seat on a bus, and what her reason was for not giving up her seat that day. Snowden said that day, Parks was thinking about seeing a brutal photo of murdered teenager Emmett Till, and what it would be like to lose your only child.

The Voting Rights Act was aimed at getting rid of discrimination in voting.

After a lawsuit that changed Pocomoke City’s elections from at-large candidates to districts, Snowden said, Honiss Cane became a candidate who would run and get elected.

“The Voting Rights Act impacted the entire nation,” Snowden said. “Pocomoke City was one of the ones that benefited from that.”

But Meredith Curtis of the ACLU of Maryland spoke of a situation earlier this year in which an election for a District Four City Council seat was canceled. A woman who wanted to run as a write-in candidate wasn’t allowed to, she said.

“That is a violation of the Voting Rights Act,” she said.

The Voting Rights Act must be followed in each community, she said, including in Pocomoke City’s District Four.

“Every community matters under the Voting Rights Act,” Curtis said.

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