'Until the Building Falls Down': A Fight to Vote

In 1947, Theresa Burroughs was 18 years old and ready to vote. But in her Alabama town, it took two years of effort just for her to register. Burroughs voted in the next election. And she hasn't stopped since.


And let's come back to this country now for StoryCorps. This project is recording American voices with interviews around the country, and we hear them on MORNING Edition every Friday.

Today we have a story from Tuscaloosa, Alabama. It's our first from that state. In 1947 , Theresa Burroughs was 18 years old and ready to vote but actually exercising that right was difficult. Here she remembers trying to register at the Hale County Courthouse.

I went there for 2 years with a minister named Reverend J.J. Seemings, the white men they would not let us register the vote, they would sit there, they had tables and they would be playing dominos. I didn't even know how to play dominos but do you know I learnt to play standing there watching them. They would ask you silly questions like this man I never forget his name, Mr. Cox. He was chair of the board of registrars. He asked me: how many black jellybeans in the jar, how many red ones in there? And I told him you don't know how many jellybeans, he told me to shut my black mouth. Shut up. Well, the next Monday I told Raven Seemings that I was not going back, I said 'cause I'm not going to be embarrassed like that any more. He said you want to vote, don't you. I said yeah. He said we were gonna go until the building falls down, so we're gonna be there every time they open that door. He said at nine in the morning, I'll be back to pick you up. You're going. And that is the day Mr. Cox asked me to recite part of the Preamble to the constitution. I don't really think he knew but I recited it. He said: you're gonna pass the day, because we're tired of looking at your black faces. And then he gave me my slip that I was registered to vote. We did vote in the next election. It was a joy but the thing about it is, I didn't feel it, it shouldn't have been this hard. I knew, I knew but I knew it shouldn't have been this hard.

Theresa Burroughs at a StoryCorps booth in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. She tells us that she has not missed an election in the last 60 years. StoryCorps interviews are archived at the American Folklife center at the library of congress and you can learn how to record your story at npr.org.
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domino
多米诺骨牌：一个小长方木头或塑料块儿，其面分两半，每半或者空白或者刻有一到六个类似于骰子上的点
jellybean
软心豆粒糖
preamble
序言

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