Anneshia Hardy | The Hardy Exchange
With tension thick in the air and the weight of injustice pressing down on the country, I stood on the steps of the Alabama State House, not with fear, but with fire.
The occasion was the Alabama Voting Rights Lobby Day—a day meant to call attention to the urgent need to protect and expand access to the ballot box in a state where voter suppression is not a tactic of the past, but a tactic of the present. But I didn’t just come to talk about laws. I came to talk about systems. About power. About the need to shift from playing defense to building offensive strategies.
Because if we’re going to organize our people, we have to first free our minds.
I asked the crowd: What kind of democracy are we really fighting for? One that operates on exclusion and fear? One that criminalizes poverty and protects the powerful? Or one rooted in collective care, equity, and truth?
And if we’re going to talk about truth, then let’s tell the whole story.
We cannot talk about voting rights in this country without naming the systems that created the need for a movement in the first place: white supremacy and capitalism. These systems didn’t just appear—they were engineered. They are the blueprint behind voter suppression, mass incarceration, generational poverty, and the silencing of marginalized communities. But we are not powerless. And we are not waiting for saviors.
The people in the State House and the White House? They work for us. And if they’re not meeting the expectations of the people - if they keep failing our performance reviews—we have every right to fire them. And we will.
Our votes are not just civic exercises, they are declarations. And the fact that so many fight to take them away is proof of just how powerful they are. So let’s stop underestimating our influence. Let’s stop questioning our worth. Let’s organize like our lives depend on it, because they do.
This is our moment to reimagine what liberation can look like in the Deep South. To center communities that have been excluded, exploited, and erased.
We are not victims of history. We are makers of it.
Let’s keep building. Let’s keep pushing. Let’s keep demanding more.
Because freedom is a constant struggle. And we’re just getting started.
About the Author
Anneshia Hardy is a narrative strategist, scholar-activist, and social impact entrepreneur committed to leveraging storytelling and messaging for transformative social change. As Executive Director of grassroots communications and media advocacy organizations, Alabama Values and Alabama Values Progress, she leads efforts to strengthen the pro-democracy movement in Alabama and across the South through strategic messaging and digital strategies.
Co-founder of Blackyard LLC, Anneshia equips changemakers to amplify their impact in marginalized communities. With over a decade of experience, she has conducted narrative and messaging trainings for organizations like the NAACP and the Obama Foundation. Anneshia has also shaped strategies for landmark voting rights cases, including Allen v. Milligan and Louisiana v. Callais Rooted in the belief that culturally relevant narratives can drive equity and inspire action, she bridges academic insight and real-world advocacy to create lasting change.