Clara Tolbert saw parents bringing their children with them to vote Tuesday — an experience she never had growing up in the Jim Crow South.
That history is part of the reason Tolbert (at right in photo) spent all day inside the gym at Edgewood School, Ward 25’s voting station.
Tolbert, a retired case worker, signed up to work as a ballot clerk at the polls. She sat at the check-in table for voters living on streets beginning with A‑F, handing them their ballots to fill out.
Tolbert, who was born in 1944, grew up in Camp Hill, Alabama. Her parents couldn’t vote, because of laws in place to keep African-Americans away from the polls.
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 changed all that. As an adult, Tolbert has made sure to vote in every election, she said.
For the past five years, she has also signed up for the ballot clerk job.
She has been “inspired to know we have this right,” she said.
“It’s a good feeling to see especially people of color coming out to vote without dogs and water and people being put in jail,” she said.
Then she handed a ballot to a voter from Cleveland Road, who headed to a booth to fill it out.