Viola Liuzzo Drove to Selma. Andrew Goodman Went to Mississippi. Now It's Your Turn.

White Americans Must Show Up at the Polls — and Help Their Neighbors Do the Same

NO KINGS III Joplin, March 28, 2026; Photo by Aaron Gass

JOPLIN: YOUR ELECTION IS TUESDAY, APRIL 7 — FOUR DAYS AWAY

The Jasper County Municipal General Election is this Tuesday, April 7, 2026. Polls are open 6:00 AM to

7:00 PM. Local elections are decided by dozens of votes — sometimes fewer. Every single person you bring to the polls on April 7 could be the difference. Read this blog. Then connect with us. Then make a plan.

This Is a Direct Ask.

If you are white, you have something many of your neighbors, coworkers, and fellow Americans do not have right now: the ability to walk into a polling place without fear. Not because you are more of a citizen. Not because you have more rights. But because of the color of your skin and because this Regime has made it very clear that it intends to use that fear as a weapon.

White Americans have stood at this crossroads before. Some of them paid for it with their lives. The

question this moment is asking is the same one it asked in 1961, in 1964, and in 1965: which side are you on, and what are you willing to do about it?

They Did It Before. Some of Them Died Doing It.

In March 1965, Viola Liuzzo was a white housewife and mother of five from Detroit, Michigan. She watched Bloody Sunday on television — state troopers beating peaceful marchers at the Edmund Pettus Bridge — and she got in her car and drove to Selma, Alabama. She marched. She shuttled civil rights workers back and forth to the Montgomery airport. On the night of March 25, 1965, driving back from a shuttle run with a 19-year-old Black passenger, she was shot dead by members of the Ku Klux Klan. She was 39 years old. Her murder helped build the political will to pass the Voting Rights Act. She did not wait to be asked. She showed up. In the summer of 1964, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, two young white men from New York, traveled to Mississippi for Freedom Summer, a coordinated effort to register Black voters in one of the most violently segregated states in America. On June 21, 1964, they were abducted and murdered alongside their Black colleague James Chaney by members of the KKK. Andrew Goodman was 20 years old. Michael Schwerner was 24. They went knowing the danger. They went anyway.

In April 1963, William Lewis Moore, a white postal worker from Baltimore, set out alone on a one-man march from Chattanooga to Jackson, Mississippi, carrying signs reading 'Equal Rights For All.' He was found shot dead on an Alabama highway. He was 35 years old. His letter, opened after his death, said:

"The White man cannot be truly free himself until all men have their rights."

Mary White Ovington co-founded the NAACP in 1909 after deciding outrage without action was not enough. Rachelle Horowitz organized the logistics of the entire 1963 March on Washington. Joan Trumpauer Mulholland was a white Southern teenager who joined the Freedom Rides, knowing she would be arrested, beaten, and jailed. She was. And President Lyndon B. Johnson stood before Congress eight days after Bloody Sunday and said:

"Their cause must be our cause too."

None of these people waited until it was comfortable. None of them waited until the danger had passed.

They showed up in the middle of it because that is the only time showing up matters.

What Is Happening Right Now

For months, Steve Bannon, one of †rump's closest allies, has been openly calling for IÇE agents at

polling places. On his War Room podcast, he said: "You're damn right we're gonna have IÇE surround the polls come November." He called the Regime's deployment of IÇE to airports a "test run" to "perfect IÇE's involvement in the 2026 midterm election."

The White House has refused to give a clear answer. Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said she could offer "no guarantee" that IÇE won't be present at polls. New DH$ Secretary Markwayne Mullin refused to rule it out at his Senate confirmation hearing.

Senator Amy Klobuchar named what is really happening: "I think they're trying to scare people so they don't want to vote." And researcher Kate Starbird made it explicit: Bannon knows deploying IÇE to the polls would be illegal. He is counting on the threat of IÇE being enough to suppress votes, even if federal agents never show up at a single polling place. Fear is the strategy, and fear is the weapon.

The Brennan Center for Justice is clear: sending IÇE or any armed federal agents to polling places is illegal. Federal law dating to the Civil War bans troops and armed federal agents from being deployed anywhere an election is held. IÇE has no role in enforcing election laws. None. This is not a hypothetical concern; it is a documented pattern. †rump has now signed two executive orders on elections, both ruled unconstitutional by federal courts. He has defied Supreme Court orders on military deployments. He has directed the Justice Department to sue states that refuse to hand over voter data. He has threatened federal prosecution of state election officials who follow their own state laws instead of his federal voter list. At every turn, when courts have ruled against him, he has found another way to continue the same conduct. The question is not whether †rump will respect the law when it comes to IÇE at the polls.

He has already demonstrated, repeatedly and publicly, that he will not. The only question is whether enough Americans show up — loudly, visibly, and together — to make the cost of that defiance too high.

And it is not just at the polling place where Missouri voters are under attack. Missouri Republicans, at †rump's request, redrew congressional maps mid-decade to flip a Democratic congressional seat before the 2026 midterms. When 305,000 Missourians gathered signatures to put the new map to a referendum vote — nearly three times the required number — Republicans ran out the clock through six venue changes across four cases, paid agitators harassing signature gatherers, and a court ruling that let the gerrymandered map stand anyway. Missouri Senate Bill 3 threatens your schools and fire districts, the gerrymander steals your congressional representation, and IÇE at the polls is meant to make you too afraid to fight back about any of it.

Find the Liuzzo in You: What White People Must Do

Here is the truth about white privilege: you did not earn it. You cannot return it. But you can spend it —

deliberately, on purpose, for someone else's benefit. Walking alongside a neighbor to the polls changes the calculus. It signals witnesses. It signals that someone will make noise if something goes wrong.

This is not saviorism. This is solidarity. You are not rescuing anyone. You are standing next to someone who has every right to be there and making sure they know they are not alone. Viola Liuzzo did not go to Selma to rescue Black people. She went because she understood that their fight was her fight, and that staying home while other people bore the risk was its own kind of choice.

William Moore walked alone down a highway because he understood something too many white Americans still resist: that his own freedom was bound up in the freedom of people who did not look like him. "The White man cannot be truly free himself until all men have their rights." He wrote that in 1963. Nothing about it has changed.

Connect With Citizens Against Tyranny — Build the Community First

We are not asking you to figure this out alone. We are building a voter escort network right now — and we need you in it. We need white allies who are willing to:

• Commit to escorting one or more people to the polls on April 7 — or to any future election.

• Connect with neighbors, coworkers, and community members who may be afraid to vote alone.

• Attend a community planning meeting where we coordinate who needs an escort, who can provide one,

and how to document any intimidation we witness at or near the polls.

• Be a trained, calm, documented witness if anything goes wrong.

You connect with Citizens Against Tyranny through our Substack, Communities, UpScrolled, or LinkTree and tell us: I want to be a voter escort. We connect you with others in Joplin who are organizing the same thing. Together we identify who in our community needs someone to walk in with them, who can provide an escort, and how to document any intimidation we witness at or near the polls.

This is how movements work. Not one person acting alone — but a community that finds each other, makes a plan, and shows up together. Viola Liuzzo didn’t drive to Selma without a movement behind her. You don’t have to do this alone either.

Reach out right now. Find us on Substack, Communities, UpScrolled, and LinkTree. Tell us you want to be part of this. If you are in Joplin, we want to hear from you before April 7. There are people in this community who need someone to walk in with them. You could be that person. Connect. Show up. Be counted.

Joplin April 7 Ballot: What You Need to Know

A critical note on mail-in ballots: Do not mail your ballot. If you have already received a mail-in ballot, bring it with you to your polling place on April 7 and exchange it for an in-person ballot. †rump signed an executive order on March 31, 2026 attempting to control mail-in ballot distribution through DH$ and the U.S. Postal Service. That order is being challenged in court — but your safest vote is one you cast yourself, in person, on Election Day, with your community around you.

JOPLIN CITY COUNCIL — VOTE FOR NATASHA AND JAMIE

You have three votes for Joplin City Council General Seats. Give two of them to Natasha Klue-Michael and Jamie Hammond. These are the voices Joplin needs at the council table right now. Choose your third vote carefully.

PROPOSITION POLICE & FIRE — YOU DECIDE

This is a genuine progressive tension, and we are presenting both sides honestly. The workers support it.

The mechanism is regressive. You decide.

THE CASE FOR YES

This is a no-tax-rate-increase replacement of the existing half-cent Prop B sales tax Joplin voters already

approved in 2019. The rate does not go up; it stays exactly the same. Funds are restricted by state law

solely to police, fire, and dispatch services, and are governed by binding union contracts with the Fraternal Order of Police and the International Association of Fire Fighters — the workers themselves asked for this. Joplin firefighters earn $7,000 below regional average. Officers earn $12,000 below. The city has lost trained officers to neighboring departments offering $15,000 to $30,000 more per year. The Fire Department ran nearly 10,000 calls in 2025 while firefighters worked 30,500 hours of overtime. Supporting workers' wages and fully-funded emergency services is a progressive value.

THE CASE FOR NO

Sales taxes are regressive by design — everyone pays the same rate regardless of income, which means a half-cent hits a Joplin family earning $30,000 a year much harder than it hits someone earning $300,000. At the same time, Missouri's legislature — backed by billionaires like Rex Sinquefield — has already eliminated corporate and capital gains taxes, slashing state revenues by billions. The Kehoe Tax Hike moving through Jefferson City would eliminate income tax entirely and replace it with a broad sales tax on rent, childcare, medical care, car repair, and more. Every time working Missourians are asked to fund public services through sales taxes instead of progressive income-based revenue, it normalizes a system where the wealthy pay less and the poor pay more.

Whatever you decide, show up on April 7 and vote.

JASPER COUNTY TAX EXEMPTION QUESTION — VOTE NO

Do not be fooled by how this question is worded. A 'YES' vote on the Jasper County tax exemption will

severely limit the ability of Joplin's cities, schools, libraries, ambulance districts, and fire districts to provide the services you depend on. This is not about protecting homeowners. This is about protecting billionaires.

Here is what this question actually is: it is the local implementation of Missouri Senate Bill 3, signed into law by Governor Mike Kehoe during a special legislative session in June 2025. SB 3 required 97 of Missouri's 114 counties to place this property tax measure on the April 7 ballot. Both Jasper and Newton counties fall into the '5% category' — meaning if voters say 'YES,' property tax increases on primary residences would be capped at 5% per year. That sounds reasonable until you understand what it actually does: it caps the revenue that schools, fire districts, libraries, and ambulance districts can collect — guaranteeing that over time, as costs rise, services get cut. A constitutional lawsuit has already been filed challenging SB 3, arguing it violates the Missouri Constitution by taxing people differently based solely on which county they live in.

The rest of the story: Missouri's billionaires — Rex Sinquefield's Show-Me Institute and the Herzog

Foundation — do not want to pay taxes. The legislature has already eliminated corporate and capital gains taxes for them, reducing Missouri revenues by billions. This ballot measure is the next step in that same project.

After April 7, the next shoe to drop is the Mike Kehoe Tax Hike — already passed by the MO House and

moving through the Senate. If it ultimately passes and goes to voters, it would eliminate the state income tax — 65% of Missouri's entire budget — and replace it with a sales tax on all goods and services estimated at 13-20%. That means sales tax on rent, childcare, car repair, internet, medical and dental care, home repair, insurance, salon services, union dues, and package delivery.

All of these measures — including this one on your April 7 ballot — help billionaires while hurting local

communities. Seniors, poor, and middle-class Missourians will pick up the tab for income and property taxes not paid by the ultra-rich.

Vote NO on the Jasper County tax exemption question. Don't let Rex Sinquefield's billionaire agenda

gut your community's schools, libraries, and ambulance districts.

Seven Things to Do Right Now

1. Connect with Citizens Against Tyranny. Tell us you want to be a voter escort. We will connect you with people who need one and others who are organizing the same thing in Joplin.

2. Ask someone directly. Think of one person in your life who might hesitate to vote alone. Ask them: can I walk in with you? That is the whole conversation.

3. Volunteer as a poll worker or observer. Sign up at powerthepolls.org or through your Jasper County

Clerk's office: 417-625-4307. Your presence inside the process protects everyone.

4. Know what to do if you see something. Document everything — date, time, location, badge numbers,

vehicle plates, exact words. Do not confront. Document. Then call the Election Protection hotline:

1-866-OUR-VOTE (1-866-687-8683).

5. Spread the word through community spaces. Churches, barbershops, community centers, your workplace. The message is simple: you have the right to vote, you will not be alone, and Citizens Against Tyranny is organizing escorts.

6. Contact your representatives. Demand they support the Democracy Without Intimidation Act and the Stop IÇE Election Militarization Act. Congressional switchboard: (202) 224-3121.

7. Vote on April 7 — IN PERSON. Polls are open 6:00 AM to 7:00 PM. Bring your photo ID. Bring someone with you. If you have already received a mail-in ballot, do not mail it. Bring it with you to your polling place and surrender it there in exchange for a regular ballot. Given †rump's new executive order attempting to control mail-in ballot distribution through DH$ and the U.S. Postal Service, the safest vote is a vote cast in person, in your community, with witnesses around you.

Viola Liuzzo got in her car and drove to Selma. Andrew Goodman got on a bus to Mississippi. William Moore walked alone down a highway with a sign. None of them waited for it to be safe.

All we are asking you to do is walk someone to a polling place. Connect with your community. Make a plan.

Show up.

They gave everything. You can give an afternoon. Joplin votes April 7. It starts now.

References

1. Brennan Center for Justice — Sending ICE to Polling Places Is Illegal

2. CNN — ICE agents have been deployed to airports. Are the polls next?

3. Newsweek — ICE Agents Should Be Deployed During Midterms, Trump Ally Says

4. Newsweek — ICE Could Be Barred From Polling Stations

5. Spotlight PA — †rump admin won't rule out placing federal agents at polls

6. Stateline — Blue states push to ban ICE at the polls

7. Medium / Kate Starbird — Effective outrage: Defusing ICE at the polls threats

8. PBS American Experience — Milestones of the Civil Rights Movement (Viola Liuzzo)

9. History.com — Civil Rights Movement: Freedom Summer, Goodman and Schwerner

10. Teaching While White — White Antiracist Activists

11. NAACP — Civil Rights Leaders: Mary White Ovington

12. KZRG — Joplin Leaders Urge Support for Proposition Police and Fire

13. City of Joplin — Proposition Police and Fire information

14. Power the Polls — Sign up to be a poll worker

15. Election Protection Hotline — 1-866-OUR-VOTE

16. Democracy Without Intimidation Act — Rep. April McClain Delaney (MD)

17. Stop ICE Election Militarization Act — Reps. Larson, Williams, Escobar

18. Jasper County Clerk — Election information: 417-625-4307

19. Jasper County — Tax Exemption Ballot Measure Documentation

20. KSMU — Counties across Missouri prepare for Senate Bill 3 vote

21. Democracy Docket — GOP derails bid to stop Missouri gerrymander for 2026