"I really didn't do a damn thing except what everyone's supposed to do," Gorby said Thursday, sitting at home and covered neck-to-toe in a red-and-green plaid blanket, two of his granddaughters whispering to each other nearby.
Praise for Gorby's gumption and sense of duty came from near and far.
U.S. Rep. John R. Lewis, a hero of the civil rights movement who suffered beatings and arrests for his role in securing voting rights for African Americans, said he was touched and amazed to hear about Gorby, calling it "a lesson to all of us."
"This gentleman, 83 years old, coming from the hospital, realized that people suffered and struggled, and some people died for the right," said Lewis, 70, an 11-term Georgia congressman. "So many other people who are able to walk to the poll decided not to take the short walk . . . to vote.
"Here in the South, when I was growing up in Alabama, people had to take literacy tests, people had to interpret sections of the Constitution to vote," he said. "Black lawyers, black doctors, and black teachers . . . and if they could answer, they were asked to count the number of jelly beans in a jar.
"There were people beaten, shot, and killed for attempting to register to vote," Lewis said.
"The vote, for me, is precious. Almost sacred."
Forty-five years after Alabama troopers confronted Lewis and other voting-rights marchers on the Edmund Pettus Bridge ("We were beaten, tear-gassed, trampled by horses," he recalled), voting has never been easier. Registration takes minutes. Both major parties call, e-mail, and knock on doors to remind supporters to vote and offer transport to the polls. Online widgets can give voters their correct polling location within seconds of learning their home address.
