Why I Vote: Marsha Lewis, Detroit

My voter report card says I’m an above-average voter. I’m 73 and I’ve voted in every election since I was 18, because I was brought up that way.

I had a very strong union dad. The political atmosphere at our home was normal. Our television showed civil rights leaders doing positive things. My dad didn’t shield us from negative things others did to us, too.

When I was 12, my parents told me to put my bike away to go see Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I have a Dream” speech at Cobo Hall. I was young and wanted to play, but something about his voice attracted me to the stage, and I actually listened.

I grew up knowing the challenges of being an African American child and later, an adult—but I knew they could be overcome. There were always positive things to go with it, to balance it out.

The first time I voted, my parents told me to vote for who you want and read up on your candidates. I raised my children to do the same.

My children are very open in thinking; they’ll listen to both candidates— and I appreciate that. I don’t ask them who they are voting for. They have their ways of voting, and I don’t impose mine.

I just really put it in my children’s mind to vote. That’s the way I was raised, to stand up for yourself and to vote.