- We originally originated in Louisiana.

My great-grandfather owned the land, but I never could really get the straight of the story, but he had to leave to prevent being lynched.

I don't know the reason why.

So he took all of his girls and left the boys on the land.

But every place that my grandfather moved, we owned land.

That was something that was instilled in us as children.

Own the land, be property owners.

- [Karen] Because?

- Because when it was time to pay poll tax, you could vote.

- People literally died for what we take for granted today.

We can't take it for granted.

It's something that people shed their blood for.

They suffered, they suffered tremendously.

- That's a good question.

How do we persuade the African-Americans to vote?

In a way you feel that way, that it doesn't matter.

And that may not necessarily be true, but it seems that way, because after vote, after vote, after vote, after vote nothing, not much has really changed for us.

We still have ghettos.

We're still not getting the jobs.

We still have substandard living.

So I think the way to persuade them is to let them see that it actually works, to see change.

Not just getting a person in the office that we think, but to see the person in office and see them make a difference.

'Cause we're hopeless.

Give them some hope.

- We have people even now, you know, you have, people of all races who don't feel the need to vote within our city.

And it's like, we can complain all day, take your complaints to the ballot box, take your complaints to that voting booth, to the voting machine and actually do something about it.

- I also believe it's very important that Black people go out and vote.

For everything, not just the presidential election, but every single thing, every bill, go out and vote.

Because if our voices aren't going to be heard, like if we're not putting them out there to be heard, then no one's going to listen.

- They need to understand that.

They need to understand that somebody fought for you to be able to go and turn your ballot in a November.

Somebody died for you to be counted in your census so that funding could go to your community.

But people don't see that, they feel like for so long I've been disenfranchised, nobody's listening to me.

Nobody cares, but you have to make people care about you.

You have to show them that you're a person and that you deserve to be treated as such and that you won't accept anything less than that.

(soft music)