A Great Awakening?

This story is just incredible. 

Thousands of African-American students marched through a dangerous county yesterday to protest a decision that would have had only one polling station in the entire county for early voting. 

From what I'm reading in comments threads, Waller County is a real charming place. The kind of place where cops would stop and harass white kids for having rock station bumper stickers on their cars. The kind of place black students would drive 50+ miles out of their way to go around to get to their destination for fear of being pulled over (and then?).

Anyway, by itself it's a pretty amazing story, but as a piece with everything else that's happening across the country right now, it's huge. 

Am I being foolishly poetic or is there really something big stirring in this land?

Read this post from Burnt Orange Report. 

Thousands of Prairie View Students March 7.3 Miles to Vote

Early voting starts today in Texas. In Waller County, a primarily rural county about 60 miles outside Houston, the county made the decision to offer only one early voting location: at the County Courthouse in Hempstead, TX, the county seat.

Prairie View A&M students organized to protest the decision, because they felt it hindered their ability to vote. For background, Prairie View A&M is one of Texas'

 historically Black universities. It has a very different demographic feel than the rest of the county. There has been a long history of dispute over what the students feel is disenfranchisement. There was a lot of outrage in 2006, when students felt they were unfairly denied the right to vote when their registrations somehow did not get processed.

According to an article in today's Houston Chronicle:

Waller County has faced numerous lawsuits involving voting rights in the past 30 years and remains under investigation by the Texas Attorney General's Office based on complaints by local black leaders.

 Those allegations, concerning the November 2006 general election, related to voting machine failures, inadequate staffing and long delays for voting results.

"I was angry after registering to vote in the 2006 election only to be turned away at the voting booth," said sophomore Dee Dee Williams.

So what are the students doing?
1000 students, along with an additional 1000 friends and supporters, are this morning walking the 7.3 miles between Prairie View and Hempstead in order to vote today. According to the piece I saw on the news (there's no video up, so I can't link to it), the students plan to all vote today. There are only 2 machines available at the courthouse for early voting, so they hope to tie them up all day and into the night.

And this from the Houston Chronicle:

Thousands march in Prairie View for voting rights
PRAIRIE VIEW — More than 1,000 Prairie View A&M University students and supporters marched seven miles to the polls on Tuesday to protest the lack of an early voting place on campus for the March 4 election.
…

Students, local leaders, civil rights activists and elected officials walked from the campus to the Waller County Courthouse in Hempstead carrying "Register to Vote" signs. The majority wore black shirts with the slogan, "It is 2008. We will vote!"

Following After the march, some students stood in a long line to cast their ballots on the first day of early voting, while others filled out new voter registration cards in a building across from the courthouse. Early voting ended at about 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, and some waited for five hours to vote.

And here's video footage: