When travelers plan out a road trip, they typically map out which landmarks and national parks to visit. When political strategist Tayhlor Coleman planned out her road trip, her pit stops included county courthouses, college campuses and churches.

It’s been more than two years since Coleman decided to live in her van full time and increase voting access in Texas – one of the worst states for voter suppression. It’s a mission that was mapped out by her freedom fighting ancestors, her lineage stretches seven generations deep in the Lone Star State. Not only does her family own land in the same county where they were once enslaved, they were also some of the first Black Texans to cast a ballot following the Civil War. Some of her family members lost their lives while protecting Black political power.

Voting rights are still a struggle in Texas more than a century and a half after Black men got the right to vote in 1867. A nonpartisan study examining the ease of voting state by state ranked Texas 46th in the nation. Coleman has hit some of these policy potholes while on the road to improve democracy in her van named “Barb,” which is Coleman’s nickname for the civil rights leader and first Black U.S. congresswoman Barbra Jordan. Texas is one of eight states that doesn’t allow online voter registration and one of a few states that requires certification to legally register voters. And no, there isn’t one statewide application for certification. So Coleman spent the 2022 midterms trying to get certified in each of Texas’ 254 counties.

Her family’s history keeps her grounded despite the chaos of it all. Her family members’ names appear on a copy of the 1867 voting roll she has framed in her van. A photo of her great-great-great-grandmother Sally, who was born enslaved, also reminds Coleman of her role in the family’s legacy.

“We always have to be fighting for Black liberation,” Coleman said. “Black liberation is not a destiny. It is a journey. What I’m doing is a continuation of the journey that my grandmother was on when she sat at a counter and got spat at. It’s the same journey that my ancestors were on when they gave up their life to protect the ballots that their neighbors had cast in a free and fair election.”

Coleman’s parents fanned the flames of her curiosity about history at an early age. She was required to write reports every summer break about a book by a Black author or about Black history. She’d had a good helping of history even before she took her first dip into politics after the passage of the Affordable Healthcare Act. As someone who suffered from complications due to sickle cell disease as a child, Coleman took a position with Planned Parenthood to educate and sign low-income people of color up healthcare coverage. She then started working on election campaigns and she was hooked. Next, she moved to Washington, D.C.

Genealogy became a hobby for Coleman as she took breaks between election cycles. She started researching the Black history within her own bloodline by diving into the records on Ancestry.com and listening to stories from her elders. Some of the history was painful to hold as Coleman found her ancestors’ names on the will of their enslaver, which asked the enslaved to be passed down to the enslaver’s children. She also pointed out the emotional labor it takes for elders to talk about the racial violence they face.

Which is why Coleman celebrates what her family has built over generations. Her ancestors obtained land shortly after emancipation. Another family member started earning wealth through his steam-engine cotton gin and livestock. They were creating a new life for themselves during Reconstruction, a time when formerly Confederacy were commanded to create new state governments that allowed Black men to run for office and vote.

According to historians, Federal troops and investigators would protect Black men’s right to cast a ballot. Reconstruction made way for more than 50 Black lawmakers in Texas to rise to prominence in the Republican party, which back then was known as Abraham Lincoln’s party, while Confederacy supporters joined the Democratic party. Black lawmakers across the country used their political power to start state-funded public schools. Their families flourished as they owned their own businesses.

Coleman has spent many summers on her family’s ranch, which now stretches a few hundred acres. It has become a place of community and joy for her family where they host parties, smile during line dances and enjoy horseback rides.

“I think a lot about what it must have been like to build all of that up at a time where they weren’t giving out the ‘40 acres and a mule.’ You really had to get by on what you were able to build,” Coleman said. “Obviously, there’s a part of me that thinks about slavery – the brutality of that, the lack of choice and exertion of freewill. But most often I think about what my family looks like now and how our ancestors could not have imagined the progress that we would have made.”

Coleman stresses that her family story isn’t unique. She encourages all Black Americans to unearth the stories in their own family lines. Which is why she is concerned about the political efforts to not only silence, but rewrite Black history. Earlier this year, Florida governor and Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis banned a high school Advanced Placement Course on African American studies because it “lacks educational value.” In July, The Florida State Board of Education approved new standards that include teaching students that some Black people benefited from slavery.

Coleman believes these standards and bans are attempts to disempower Black kids because it cuts them off from being inspired by their own legacies. Growing up as a Black child in America can make you feel like you don’t have any ownership over the outcome of the county, Coleman said. But Black history shows that is far from true.

“Learning more about this history and how hard it was for my own family to play a role in the progress of this country – it motivates me and I think that’s what a lot of Black kids would feel if they had an opportunity to learn more about the struggles in their own personal families and want to carry on those legacies,” Coleman said. “That’s why I think it’s so important to protect the teaching of our history because it does give more young Black kids that want to get involved in their communities and organize and vote. And that’s what they’re scared of.”

Coleman’s own contribution to her family’s voting rights legacy started during the COVID-19 pandemic, when she left her apartment in Washington, D.C., to live with her parents in Houston. Like many Americans, she sought refuge in social media and found herself expanding her horizon virtually on Instagram thanks to #vanlife. During fall of 2020, Coleman posted a picture of herself on Instagram sitting on the edge of an unrenovated white Sprinter Ram ProMaster van with the caption “So I did something rather crazy.”

Coleman traveled a lot as a campaign worker, so living on the open road didn’t intimidate her. But transforming the van into a livable space was a feat. With YouTube as her guide, Coleman grabbed some power tools, slapped on some safety glasses and got to work. She documented the conversion on her Instagram as she laid out the floorboards and tried her hand at some wiring before handing the rest of the work to the professionals at a van-build shop in Austin, Texas. Barb’s final facelift included an outdoor shower, accent panels decorated with a meadow full of bluebonnets – Texas’ state flower – and some air time during the second-season premier of “Van Go,” a Magnolia Network show that’s similar to “Pimp My Ride” but for vanlifers.

The original plan for the van was to give Coleman the ability to enjoy a more scenic route during her trips between Houston and D.C. But things changed on Jan 6, 2021 – when a mob of former U.S. President Donald Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol. A swarm of violence, destruction and false allegations of election fraud erupted during an attempt to stop the certification of President Joe Biden’s election victory. More than 1,100 people have been charged for their roles in the riot. Earlier this month, Trump was indicted on four charges related to Jan 6, including conspiracy to defraud the United States and conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding.

It was a moment that felt familiar to Coleman and her family who experienced similar political terror almost 200 years ago. The increase of Black political participation during Reconstruction triggered a wave of racial terrorism by white supremacists in the late 19th century. An example of this occurred during election night in November 1886, when an armed, white man stole ballot boxes from a small Black voting precinct in Washington County. The intruder was part of an all-white, ballot-stealing ring formed by the “People’s Party,” a group fighting to make the political process white again. In an effort to protect the votes, three Black poll workers fought back against the intruder who was shot and killed during a struggle.

No one was arrested for the attempt to steal ballot boxes. Instead, the three Black poll workers were arrested, jailed and later lynched by a white mob. Those poll workers were Coleman’s own family members. The hanging sparked a wildfire of outrage that prompted an investigation by Congress. Coleman said hundreds of Black Texans hopped on trains to give their account of the terrorism plaguing their state. Just two years prior to the “election outrage of 1886,” three Black elected officials were murdered 10 miles away from the Washington County precinct. Coleman was reading through some of those testimonies a few months before the January 6th insurrection.

“So it was all very fresh for me. And I was like, it is eerie how this is like the exact same thing that happened 185 years ago, like how are we still doing this?” Coleman said. “So it was around then that I was like ‘OK, well if I finish this van, this is what I’m gonna be doing.’ It just felt very real to me – like some sort of calling.”

So a plan to tour national parks turned into what Coleman calls her “one-woman protest” to improve the democratic process by registering as many voters as she could during the 2022 midterm election, which also included a heated governor election between Democratic candidate Beto O’Rourke and Republican Greg Abbott. But even the plan to get certified in all 254 counties had to shift as well. Not only was she crisscrossing the second largest state in the nation, but certification is a time-consuming process. It requires her to take a 90-minute course and an exam before she can register with a county’s voter registrar to become a volunteer deputy registrar. Luckily, she doesn’t have to take the class and exam in every single county. She can just flash her deputy registrar certificate from another county.

The logistics of getting certified also got in the way. At more than a dozen county offices Coleman visited during the midterm election cycle, she said the voter registrar wasn’t there due to lunch break or a doctor’s appointment. An Instagram reel gave her followers a glimpse into the chaos she was dealing with: She and Barb pulled up to six counties in one day and wasn’t certified in any of them. One of the culprits: understaffed election offices.

“It was a small town – a one-woman office,” Coleman said. “The reality is that you can actually have a perfect itinerary – have it all mapped out county by county by county – and you get there and there is no one to certify you.”

Coleman made sure to be extra careful during voter registration drives on college campuses. If the student lived in a county that Coleman wasn’t certified in, she couldn’t register them to vote. During a HBCU tour with the Georgia-based organization Black Voters Matter, a crowd of students huddled around the tent waiting to be registered. Only Texas residents can become certified volunteer deputy registrars. So she was the only one who could legally register people to vote on the caravan.

She had to read through every single application she received with a detailed eye to make sure potential voters filled out every line of the form. Leaving out social security numbers and driver license numbers are common mistakes. Coleman also has to be weary of time. Texas requires completed applications be turned in to the respective county election office within five days. Not doing so is a criminal offense. The applications can’t be dropped off in ballot drop boxes. They have to be turned in by hand during office hours. And don’t get Coleman started about the old-school record keeping system she’s required to do.

The frustration of wrangling with archaic policies didn’t overpower Coleman’s enthusiasm in signing up new voters. She used her platform to educate her fellow Texans about the registration process and bring to light the different ways voters are being turned away due to complicated election laws. One of those moments involved an elderly Black man who struggled to turn in a mail-in ballot application for his 90-year-old mother in Smith County, Texas.

It didn’t take long for Coleman to accept the impossibility of getting certified in all of the counties – but that made her mission all the more important. Her state’s election laws are daunting to deal with and the results show up in the state’s chronically low voter turnout rate. Coleman believes an expansion in online voter registration would take care of a lot of the problems she dealt with during the midterm election. A federal judge forced Texas officials to provide limited online registration in 2020. The state fulfills that court order by giving residents the opportunity to register to vote online during their driver’s license renewals.

“The process is very difficult on purpose,” Coleman said. “As I started this, I was very conscious of the fact that it wasn’t going to be easy, but then I started realizing like, ‘Wow, I don’t know that I’ll be able to register as many people as I thought for X, Y and Z reasons. But I also think that there was a time where I realized that even being able to show how difficult it is to register a voter in Texas is a part of the mission too.”

With the midterm election now in the rearview mirror, Coleman is using this non-election year to settle into the beauty and stillness of life. The freedom of van life gives her the ability to camp in interesting places, like a winery outside of Amarillo, Texas. Outdoor showers and learning to cook off the grid has become some of her favorite activities to do in the van.

The weather also worked things out in her favor in a weird way as record-breaking heat waves forced her to flee to other states to find cooler refuge. In between her political content, Coleman gives her followers occasional glimpses of how she is surviving the hottest summer ever in Barb. In Colorado, she was able to chill out at a buffalo ranch and enjoy some time in cooler waters. After coming back home to Barb, Coleman slipped away to Wyoming, where she learned that the Northern Lights might be visible. The stormy weather shut down the lightshow, but Coleman improved the moment by indulging in one of the best burgers she’s ever had and booking a stay at a homestead where she got to pet baby goats.

The remainder of Coleman’s “free Black girl” journey includes visiting a friend in Montana and taking in the beauty of nature at Yellowstone National Park. She doesn’t plan to be in Texas until October since she is taking the long way home, which includes some meandering through Canada. She credits her therapist for pushing her to be present and fully enjoy her adventure. After all, her original plans for the van was to explore the world around her.

“You are only going to be able to do this work if you are replenishing yourself and finding the time to take care of yourself,’” Coleman told herself. “Eventually, you’ll get back to Texas, pick things up where you left it and get back to work.”

This doesn’t mean Coleman is completely disconnected from her job as campaign strategist. She still catches flights every now and again to Washington, D.C., which makes her vulnerable to the circus of politics. Sometimes those environments can cause her to feel unmotivated. But the people she has met while on the road keep her uplifted.

During her stay at a horse sanctuary in Wyoming, a rancher named Dave, who owned the space, wanted to chat with Coleman after googling her name. He was a retired police officer with a gun on his hip, which can lead to a lot of assumptions about his political affiliation, Coleman said. But the conversation reinvigorated Coleman as the rancher explained how her mission to step up and challenge a broken voting system gave him a lot of hope.

People like Dave have helped Coleman realize that no matter what side of the political aisle someone sits on, the right to vote is common ground.

“You’ve got some crazy shit happening in national and state politics, but it’s not really reflective of Americans’ relationship with each other,” Coleman said. “Everybody appreciates the fact that, no matter who you are voting for, if you’re American, you should have equal access to the ballot. I think realizing how many people of all backgrounds, of all political affiliations, agree with that central point helps keep me grounded in the fact that hope is not lost.”

Hope and history will keep Coleman running as she changes up her strategy for the presidential election in 2024. Instead of getting certified in all of the Texas counties, she is focusing her energy on registering voters at college campuses, Black churches and Black rural areas –

the same spaces where students, pastors and movement workers fought for racial equality for years before she was born. Now those spaces will be the setting of Coleman’s story, where she will continue to author the next pages of her family’s legacy.

“Any progress this country has made is on the backs of Black Americans who stood up and said, ‘We’re going to hold America to the promise that it made in its Constitution,’” Coleman said. “I look at the Constitution as a Black liberation document because that is what we have used all of these generations to go back and say, ‘America, this is what you said you were going to do.’ So, as far as Black Liberation goes, my kids, my grandkids will be on the same journey. And it doesn’t stop.”