After more than 1 million votes went uncounted in the last presidential election, Athan Gibbs Sr. devoted his life to making sure voters in future elections would know their votes mattered.
The enterprising 57-year-old saw his invention of the TruVote vote-casting system as nothing less than the key to social justice and democracy in America.
As family members and business partners gathered at the TruVote office yesterday morning to mourn Mr. Gibbs' death, they vowed that his dream would not die with him.
Mr. Gibbs was killed about 10:30 a.m. Friday in a car crash on Interstate 65 near Eighth Avenue North as he drove from his north Nashville home to his downtown office at Tennessee State University's Business Incubation Center.
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Mr. Gibbs was driven by his experiences growing up in Memphis in the 1950s and '60s, when minorities were struggling to exercise their right to vote. After a U.S. Commission on Civil Rights study of the 2000 presidential election showed that votes cast by African-Americans in Florida, a decisive state, were 10 times more likely to be rejected, Mr. Gibbs knew he had to take action. [more]
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