By Tanya Wilkinson
On July 17th Representative John Lewis, a stalwart of the Civil Rights movement and one of the architects of the Voting Rights Act, died. In his eulogy for the Congressman Barack Obama referenced the long history in America of disenfranchising People of Color and sounded a warning.
Obama said:
“We may no longer have to guess the number of jelly beans in a jar to be able to cast a ballot, but even as we sit here, there are those in power who are doing their darnedest to discourage people from voting by closing polling locations and targeting minorities and students with restrictive ID laws and attacking our voting rights with surgical precision—even undermining the Postal Service in the run-up to an election that’s going to be dependent on mail-in ballots so people don’t get sick.”
Although voter suppression impacts many groups, Black voters in particular still face tremendous obstacles as they try to cast their ballots. The coronavirus pandemic, which disproportionately affects people of color, will only add to the challenge of voting during the November election. In the wake of Lewis' death, advocates and activists are hoping to draw attention to and restore the power of the Voting Rights Act.
Airlift supported groups such as Black Voters Matter (BVM), an organization dedicated to expanding Black voter engagement and increasing progressive power through movement-building, are at the forefront of these efforts. As Cliff Albright, a co-founder of Black Voters Matter Fund, states:
“The good news is that the story of the 1965 Voting Rights Act is not over. The triumph of the Voting Rights Act was a triumph of movement. The seeds sown by John Lewis and thousands of others have not yet stopped bearing fruit, and the movement lives on in today’s freedom fighters. We have the power to not only restore the Voting Rights Act, but to make it even better than it was before, complete with stronger consequences, civil as well as criminal, for those who seek to take us backwards. At Black Voters Matter, we are committed to ensuring that our rights—constitutional and human—are enforced.”
According to the Brennan Center for Justice, legislators in 25 states have introduced hundreds of measures that make it harder to vote since 2010. President Trump has recently led the GOP in a many-fronted attack on voting rights, with some noted success in states like Georgia. The Washington Post maintains that:
“Voter suppression has been a political plague of American doing. It must be assessed for what it is: a calculated subversion of American democracy. Moreover, Trump is going further by extending the attempt to quell non-White voting to anyone who might vote against him.”
The Post goes on to state that:
“The possibility of mass mail-in voting presents the country with a potential paradigm shift, one that could go in two directions. We might finally demolish obstinate barriers to political participation. Or, those in power might manage to protect those barriers and extend their disenfranchisement schemes to more citizens by forcing them to risk endangering their health when visiting the polls. Perhaps amid the seemingly perpetual darkness of current politics, there is one of the president’s tweets that we can find hope on November 3rd.”
Voting by mail, the safest option during the pandemic, has been one of the President’s favorite targets, engendering countless tweets based on fantasies of fraud. Trump’s efforts to undermine voting by mail are not limited to disinformation. Salon recently reported that multiple government watchdog groups called for an investigation into newly-installed Postmaster General Louis DeJoy over concerns that his actions since taking over the agency could amount to "voter suppression tactics.”
Trump’s opposition to mail-in ballots must be understood as the most recent act in a long, consistent campaign to stop non-White voters from exercising their right to political participation. At Black Voters Matter, organizers are well aware of the threat that widespread voting by mail presents to those in power and of the GOP’s efforts to suppress this form of enfranchisement. BVM uses both deep or Relational Canvassing and ongoing relationships with local partners across the Southern States and in selected cities in the Midwest to encourage people to enroll in Vote by Mail. At the same time Black Voters Matter stands ready to pivot to giving practical support, in the form of transportation, masks and sanitizer, if in-person voting at the polls becomes the sole or primary option.
As efforts to suppress the voting rights of African Americans have intensified, Airlift’s Voter Motor Fund supports five voting rights groups in Florida, Georgia and North Carolina. These include Black Voters Matter, the Carolina Federation, Down Home North Carolina, Organize Florida, and New Georgia Project. Their work is vital in the fight for full enfranchisement. As the Motor Voter organizations fight off waves of voter suppression measures and right-wing attacks on voting rights they need steady support. Donate to further their efforts here.