When travelers plan out a road trip, they typically map out which landmarks and national parks to visit. When political strategist Tayhlor Coleman planned out her road trip, her pit stops included county courthouses, college campuses and churches.
It’s been more than two years since Coleman decided to live in her van full time and increase voting access in Texas – one of the worst states for voter suppression. It’s a mission that was mapped out by her freedom fighting ancestors, her lineage stretches seven generations deep in the Lone Star State. Not only does her family own land in the same county where they were once enslaved, they were also some of the first Black Texans to cast a ballot following the Civil War. Some of her family members lost their lives while protecting Black political power.
Voting rights are still a struggle in Texas more than a century and a half after Black men got the right to vote in 1867. A nonpartisan study examining the ease of voting state by state ranked Texas 46th in the nation. Coleman has hit some of these policy potholes while on the road to improve democracy in her van named “Barb,” which is Coleman’s nickname for the civil rights leader and first Black U.S. congresswoman Barbra Jordan. Texas is one of eight states that doesn’t allow online voter registration and one of a few states that requires certification to legally register voters. And no, there isn’t one statewide application for certification. So Coleman spent the 2022 midterms trying to get certified in each of Texas’ 254 counties.
Her family’s history keeps her grounded despite the chaos of it all. Her family members’ names appear on a copy of the 1867 voting roll she has framed in her van. A photo of her great-great-great-grandmother Sally, who was born enslaved, also reminds Coleman of her role in the family’s legacy.
“We always have to be fighting for Black liberation,” Coleman said. “Black liberation is not a destiny. It is a journey….
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