I used to live in Texas. For the very most part, Texas gets a bad rap -- it's, by far, the most friendly place I've ever set foot, especially in Central Texas and the Hill Country.
But, like too many places in this country, Texas still has a very dark and checkered history when it comes to denying voting rights and equal protection to minorities, especially blacks.
Today, some young voters that are college students at Prairie View A&M University decided to fight back against the rules that are intended to discourage them from voting, and seized the day -- over 1000 strong marched over 7 miles to get to their early voting polling place.
Prairie View A&M is a historically black college outside of Houston, about 1/3 of the way between Houston and Austin. The mainstream and establishment press didn't cover this much, but the students there have always been given a hard time when they tried to register or vote in Waller County, a rural and exurban county northwest of Houston.
Check out the diary of the event from Burnt Orange Report (the Texas version of Raising Kaine) here.
The photo is from the flickr page of Dan Grant, the people powered candidate running against a TV judge (seriously) for the Democratic nomination to run against Bush Republican hack Michael McCaul in TX-10. Dan apparently decided to march with these students in solidarity, probably picking up some nice support for himself in the process in the most obvious way possible -- by being there. [I briefly met Dan last year at yKos, and he is a very similar candidate to Glenn Nye here in Va -- sharp young guy with real world overseas experience.]
In many ways, it's a great microcosm of the netroots/grassroots revitalization of the Democratic party and the fervor that surrounds the Obama campaign -- we will work everywhere, all 50 states (plus DC and territories), every county, every district, to make change happen.
Seeing college kids decide that, "Hell no, we won't be dissuaded from exercising our most fundamental citizenship right by your trickery," and marching to exercise their franchise is heartening. And perhaps their act shouldn't be exagerrated -- as far as I know, Waller County would have had more than one polling place for the actual March 4th date, versus just one for the early voting; these kids still would have had a chance to vote. But regardless, seeing people confront what they saw as an unfair situation by marching to vote is pretty damned inspiring.
BTW, their actions persuaded the authorities (including at the DoJ!) to get involved. There will be more early voting polling locations opened due to their actions.
Yes, they can? No -- Yes, they did.
Imagine if everyone who is outraged about vote denial, vote suppression, and voter disenfranchisement in so many ways, got going, protested, and organized to demand fair voting practices!
After 2000 why was there no such outrage when tens of thousands of voters were told their votes didn't count, tens more were told their registrations were "invalid" when they were falsely accused of being felons.
This year, in the NY primary, 60 precincts were "tallied" (rigged? or accident?)to "show" Obama got zero votes--in and near Harlem. That, when adjacent districts turned out 85% or better for Barack. But in those 60 precincts, their votes did not count. Where is the outrage? Where is the investigation? Why are there not people in the street?
PS I'll take your word for it on TX. As for myself, the friendliest place I have ever lived was South Bay area of Southern California(Torrance, Redondo Beach, Hermosa Beach, etc).
I'm actually in Long Beach this weekend, and you are right that SoCal beach folk are pretty damned nice. However, I'm not sure they should count -- I'd be a friendly and happy person, too, if I lived in paradise! :)