On Nov. 8, will history be made or will history repeat itself?

The year 2020 was unprecedented in an abundance of ways. From a summer season of racial and civil unrest, in addition to a deadly public health crisis, 2020 was unlike anything else.

Though we are two years removed, the impacts of 2020 still remain. One particular impact of 2020 cannot be denied, and that is the impact the year had on the Black vote.

Nationally, 2020 was a monumental year as Black voter turnout, Black political power and involvement were at a high. It was published that in 2020, across the country, the number of Black registered voters in the United States reached 30 million people. That number was significant, as “more than a third of those voters live in key battleground states” such as Michigan, Pennsylvania, Michigan and especially Georgia. The 2020 election intertwined community organizing with voter education to ensure intentional voter participation.

Unfortunately, neither this participation nor effort was mirrored in the Green Mountain State, and this can be attributed to many things. Sure, it can be blamed on Vermont’s lack of being a battleground or swing state, or on the statewide population of Vermont defeating almost all others as the second-least-populated state, except the real issue is inaction.

According to the 2020 United States Census, the entire Black population in Vermont amounted to 1.4% of the approximate total of 650,000 individuals.

Shifting the focus from the substantially disproportionate population, for the 2020 election it was reported that Vermont had one of the lowest minority voter rates in the country. Specifically, “Vermont had the second-lowest percentage of Black voters in the country, at (only) 20%.”

The mention of this data is important because it could foreshadow the statewide election on Nov. 8. In an effort to alter the inevitable, allow this commentary to stress the unacceptability of that possibility.

Out of all 50 states, Vermont has been the only state to not pass anti-voter legislation within the last 18 months. Additionally, automatic voter registration occurs when eligible Vermont residents receive their state driver’s license. The absence of explicit voter suppression in the state gifts Vermont the classification of being the lowest-barrier voting state. And yet, people aren’t voting and there are minimal efforts to correct that.

Proposal 2 is on the upcoming state ballot this year, and this proposal requires involvement. Proposal 2, if passed, would amend the Vermont Constitution to clearly express a prohibition on enslavement.

Ironically, it has always been said that Vermont was one of the first states to place a prohibition on slavery within its state constitution — though the constitutional language reads otherwise.

Article 1 of the Vermont Constitution partially reads, “… therefore, no person born in this country, or brought from over sea, ought to be holden by law, to serve any person as a servant, slave or apprentice, after arriving to the age of twenty one years, unless bound by the person’s own consent, after arriving to such age, or bound by law for the payment of debts, damages, fines, costs, or the like.”

This current language presents loopholes in which, if interpreted according to the text, enslavement would be allowed — which in this context, the verb “ought” adopts a less prohibitive character and is instead more so suggestive. The context does not explicitly place a prohibition on enslavement, which creates a dangerous interpretation of this Constitution.

The necessary amendment to this language, in the form of Proposal 2, symbolizes more than a vote at the ballot box; it is a call to action. Per passage of the amendment, the Constitution would be redrafted to say, “… therefore, slavery and indentured servitude in any form are prohibited.”

There are criticisms of the implications of this constitutional amendment, and its possible preclusion of labor by incarcerated people. Perhaps the adoption of the radical approach to not force those incarcerated to engage in unpaid labor is required.

The election Nov. 8 requires action and intention. Vermont’s restrained action has been, and remains, insufficient as it relates to the political participation of voters and communities that have been historically excluded, because it is equally as bad an inaction.

Proposal 2 on the ballot is focused on America’s history of Black and brown enslavement and its need for eradication and verbal erasure in a state’s constitution, and yet the voters most reflective of this history are diminished from the conversation. This reality begs the question of history: This year, will it be made or will it be repeated? That answer is up to all of us.