Election day is a little more than two months away, and—as you’re probably well aware—this one is kind of a big deal.
This year’s midterms have taken on the kind of urgency we typically see in presidential elections. And why wouldn’t it? Americans have seen migrant children torn away from their families and thrown into detention centers. We’ve seen a conservative Supreme Court rule against labor unions and support Donald Trump’s travel ban and Ohio’s aggressive voter purging.
Which is why forever first lady Michelle Obama and a slew of other celebrities, including Houston Rockets player Chris Paul, actor Tom Hanks, and playwright Lin-Manuel Miranda are urging people to vote through a series of videos, each one detailing personal voting stories and urging all eligible voters to get registered.
In Obama’s video, she recounts watching her father, who had multiple sclerosis, go through the great effort of voting—a process that involved him taking out his crutches and walking down the stairs of a neighborhood church basement so he could vote.
“I remember my father doing this exercise every single election and not worrying about whether it was raining or snowing, or whether he was tired. And I remember accompanying him on these voting excursions to that little church basement,” Obama recalled.
The videos are part of the When We All Vote campaign, on which Obama serves as co-chair. In a month, Obama and her fellow co-chairs will travel the country for a Week of Action, which will rally potential voters, and get them registered and trained to vote.
The Week of Action is slated for September 22 through the 29th.