Week of Why Day 5 - Sent June 10, 2020
Dear Friends and Family,
As a reminder, over the course of the week I will be highlighting 7 different organizations that support black lives and communities of color and discussing important questions that I’ve been asking myself, such as “why is this happening?” “why is this important?” and “why do we need to get involved?” Despite the research I’ve put into this project, I know that I still have a lot to learn. I am in no way an expert or trying to speak on behalf of the black community, but rather am attempting to use my voice and privilege as a white person to amplify those whose voices and stories have been typically ignored and excluded from popular narratives throughout history.
For Day 5 of Week of Why I am highlighting Woke Vote, a “non-partisan, non-candidate-based training and leadership development fellowship program.” According to their website:
“Woke Vote empowers individuals to fight back against policies that are antithetical to our shared values. By meeting people where they are and teaching the fundamentals of congregation and community organizing, we are altering the political landscape as we know it.”
Woke Vote’s mission is to “invest in the activation, long-term engagement, training and development of new organizers, and mobilization of historically disengaged voters of color.” This concept of “historically disengaged voters of color” dates back to post-civil war reconstruction, and does not imply that the voters themselves are choosing to be disengaged, but rather have been forced into it by policies that continue to keep them down. After the 13th amendment was passed making slavery illegal and granting freed slaves the rights of citizens, black voters turned out in huge numbers across the South, voting in 22 black congressmen. While the 15th amendment stated that voting rights could not be declined based on race, many states found their own ways around this by using discriminatory qualifications, including literacy tests, poll taxes, and grandfather clauses to keep black people out of the polls.
The Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965, allowing the number of black registered voters to rise from 23% to 61%, resulting in “more black people in public office in the South than in the rest of the nation combined.” Clearly, the disparity in proportions of black and white voters was due to restrictive policies designed to restrict black people, not a lack of internal motivation.
Poll taxes and literacy tests have now been banned for 55 years, yet there are still loopholes that policymakers have found to restrict the ability of black people and people of color from voting. Felony disenfranchisement is one of the major ways that states can use to unethically affect the turnout of black voters. The “3 Strikes, You’re Out” laws allow life sentences for recurring misdemeanor infractions. As law enforcement already disproportionately targets black people, life sentences on misdemeanor charges heavily restrict the voting percentages of the black community. Additionally, these laws don’t even prevent recurrent or violent crimes and they don’t address the major issues causing high crime rates that come from more upstream community-level inequities like education, healthcare, and early childhood development. Encouraging punishment rather than reform and healing has proven to be ineffective in reducing crime.
Not only do the 3 strikes laws contribute to the lack of black voices being heard in elections, but the war on drugs, spearheaded by Presidents Nixon and Reagan, knowingly targeted black people, increasing the severity of minor drug charges, effectively eliminating their right to vote once they were convicted. Other modern-day forms of voter disenfranchisement include having fewer polling places in black communities, fewer voter education and registration programs for people of color, and partisan gerrymandering. While gerrymandering is typically based on political party, in many states this can also indicate race, as lawmakers can draw district lines to loop in large numbers of black voters, without making them a majority, to split up their voting power.
What can you do to get involved and learn more?
Donate directly to Woke Vote by clicking here.
Participate in a Woke Vote Get Out The Vote Bootcamp. Learn more by clicking here.
“The boot camp is an opportunity for us to continue development of organizers in the communities we serve, and to build scale to reach our engagement goals. We are anticipating 100 participants and prepared to hire to join our field program as paid canvassers and organizers to scale mobilization efforts.”
Register to vote and make an effort to support leaders and policies that fight for racial justice
Watch this very short segment from “Adam Ruins Everything” where he further explains voter disenfranchisement of blacks and felons from the Jim Crow South to today.
Remember that in just reading and sharing this email you are already taking action to support the movement.
As always, if you feel like I missed something, would like to engage in further conversation, or have questions, please reply to this email (reply individually, not reply all) and I would be happy to continue the discussion or recommend further resources.
Sincerely,
Grace Hochberg