Yolanda Renee King is preparing to cast her first ballot.
In a new essay for Teen Vogue, the 18-year-old granddaughter of Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King reflects on her family’s legacy and encourages her peers to vote in Tuesday’s midterm elections.
“This November, I’m casting my first ballot, and I’d love for you to do it with me,” she wrote. “Don’t ever believe your voice doesn’t matter. You’re not just voting for you. You’re voting for me, for all of us. It’s up to us.”
Yolanda is a freshman at Columbia University in New York City, where she studies social justice. In her letter, she shared that her classmates feel the same mix of excitement and anxiety about the future that she does.
She pointed to education costs, climate change, voting restrictions and uncertainty surrounding AI as issues her generation faces. She also called the constant stream of social media messages and political opinions “exhausting.”
“Now I’m in real-time debates with my peers about all of it. Some have even asked me if voting matters.”
But she rejected the idea that young people don’t care about the issues affecting them.
“Don’t believe anyone who says young people don’t know or care about real issues. That’s not what I see. I see friends who care about so much that we don’t always know where to put it all.”
Yolanda was already thinking about her first vote in August, when she spoke at the 63rd anniversary of the March on Washington. She stood in the same place where her grandfather delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech.
“It wasn’t just about using my voice; it was about my first vote. And it felt like my grandparents were right there with me, whispering: ‘It’s your turn.’”
She called on her generation to continue the fight for voting rights.
“Here’s what I keep coming back to. There’s a relay. My grandparents fought for the right to vote alongside Fannie Lou Hamer and John Lewis. Barack Obama walked through the doors they opened. Amanda Gorman and Maxwell Frost showed what our generation can do,” she explained. “None of them had all the answers. They kept going anyway. … Then they passed us the baton.”
She closed with a few steps first-time voters can take: check their registration, learn their state’s voting rules and text three friends to make a plan to vote together.
“The dream belongs to us too. Let’s run with it.”
