My Sticker Collection: Letter From the Editor

Kierra Leggett| Editor-in-Chief

As a little girl, one of my favorite hobbies was collecting stickers. There was little that I enjoyed more than filling one sticker book up, so that I could get another. Fully aware of this, my mother would always give them to me as a small treat for doing something good.

Though it has been more than a decade since I last cracked the spine on a sticker book, or for that matter since I have been rewarded with a sticker for doing something good, on Tuesday I got to relive on my favorite childhood experiences.

Like so many of my peers, I voted in a presidential election for the very first time. Though I knew walking into my voting location on Election Day that I was doing the right thing by upholding to my civic responsibility it wasn’t until after I had cast my ballot and received my “ I voted,” sticker that the impact of what I had just done really hit me.

Women were not granted the right to vote until 1920 and for many years African-Americans had to endure great difficulty to cast their ballot. I voted at 20-years-old, with great ease, and one of the people on the ballot for President of the United States of America was a black man.

My sticker, I decided, was not just a symbol of the fact that I had voted in the presidential election, but also of all the blood lost and tears shed by persons before me so that me and other people like me could have the right to vote.

Now days about the only thing I consciously collect, are shoes (a girl can never have too many). However, after voting on Tuesday, I decided that I would begin collecting stickers again. Not necessarily the Lisa Frank ones from my past, but instead “I voted,” stickers.

Though I’ll never be able to collect enough for all of the individuals who fought hard for the right to vote, but were never fortunate enough to do so, it’s the thought that counts.