(AllHipHop News) In 1961, the Freedom Rides started to canvas Mississippi to help Black people get the right to vote.
All of the people you learned about in school, Ella Baker, Diane Nash, Medgar Evers, Julian Bond, the recently departed John Lewis organized so that people of color who had been compromised by Jim Crow-inspired voter suppression laws could cast a ballot.
Sixty years later, an African-American man from Chicago will now appear on a presidential ballot when just a half a century prior, he could have been killed for simply showing up on election day.
That is a lot to swallow.
Still, it is the truth … and come this November, Yeezy will be the second African-American to have moved past the primary elections to be on the ballot as a candidate for the office of president in the nation.
On Tuesday, September 8th, the Mississippi the State Board of Election Commissioners approved him to be on the ballot.
The Magnolia State joins Arkansas, Idaho, Iowa, Tennessee, Oklahoma, and Utah — and states that have ignored that Kanye is a registered Republican and have chosen to allow him to run as an Independent.
“It was interesting to see him pick Mississippi, and obviously it will be interesting to see what happens with that vote on Nov. 3,” Mississippi Secretary of State Michael Watson said after the election board’s meeting. “But he did qualify.”
The “Jesus Walks” emcee filed his paperwork for the presidential run on July 15th with the Federal Election Commission.
Theories have been circulated that he is a plant in the election to take away Democratic votes from Joe Biden, banking on the sheep mentality of younger fans enraptured with his celebrity.
His secret scheduled meetings, confirmed by Jared Kushner (an advisor for the White House and the son-in-law to the current president, last month has helped fuel the rumors.