102-Year-Old Warrior Suits Up Hazmat Style To Mail Her Ballot

Neither rain, nor wind nor COVID-19 was going to stop 102-year-old Beatrice Lumpkin of Chicago from voting this year. So she donned what she hoped was full plague protective gear to drop her ballot in the mailbox outside her apartment building.

The former math teacher wore what appeared to be a bright pink raincoat with the sleeves rolled up, cloth gloves, a giant white hood with a transparent face shield designed by her grandson, and a tentative confidence.

The Chicago Teachers Union posted a photo of its decked-out onetime member proudly showing off her ballot next to her mailbox.

Lumpkin hasn’t missed voting in a single election in 80 years, she told CBS Radio on Monday. The first president she voted for was Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

This year, she’s not fooling around. “It’s the most important election of my lifetime. The very future of democracy is on the line,” she told the radio station.

And she knows all about not having rights. When she was born, women couldn’t vote.

Lumpkin didn’t come right out and say whom she voted for, but it was pretty clear. Asked how she felt about Donald Trump’s attacks on voting by mail, she said: “If I had the chance, there would be a whole lot I could say to President Trump.”