![[Series] On The Ground: BLOC](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59a9a78ee9bfdf3556aba41d/1599350809112-KGWT33376AKXUOZ89JXA/bloc.jpg)
By Lorrie Goldin
The Secret Sauce for Wisconsin Victory from BLOC (Black Leaders Organizing for Communities)
All eyes have been on Wisconsin since at least the 2016 election. That’s when the state was part of the crumbling blue wall that handed Donald Trump an electoral college victory. Wisconsin has always been hard-fought political turf, with strong progressive and far-right movements battling it out for control. After a Tea Party takeover in 2010 that gerrymandered districts even more to the advantage of Republicans, the 2018 mid-terms yielded a red-to-blue flip for governor, lieutenant governor, and some crucial local races. The stakes are high for 2020—Wisconsin is considered a must-win for Democrats, and may even be the tipping-point state that decides the presidential race.
All eyes would have been on Milwaukee, Wisconsin’s largest city, for the recent Democratic National Convention had the pandemic not forced us into a virtual gathering instead. It’s an understandable though heartbreaking change of plans. But it’s also a metaphor for how Milwaukee has often been viewed politically: A place to drop by for a brief period of time to court the Black vote, then move on quickly with potential and promises unfulfilled.
Milwaukee is home to a large population of Black and Brown residents who have seen themselves left behind politically for decades. The ravages of systemic racism have made it one of the most segregated cities in the country, the worst place to raise a Black child, and with the largest proportion of incarcerated Black men in the U.S.
Milwaukee is also home to Black Lives Organizing for Community (BLOC), headed up by Angela Lang, its amazing 31-year-old co-founder and Executive Director (you can read Milwaukee Magazine’s recent terrific profile of Lang and BLOC here). BLOC was created in 2017 in the aftermath of trying to figure out what went wrong in 2016. The emerging conventional narrative about Wisconsin’s devastating loss gave a nod to Hillary’s failure to visit and new voter suppression laws. But the focus was mostly on the steep drop-off in Black turnout for Clinton compared to Obama. Unsurprised but tired of this finger-pointing narrative, Lang and other activists of color strived to tell—and remedy—the larger truth. As Lang points out, “The Black community wasn’t meaningfully engaged.” It hadn’t been for decades. She and other progressive organizers delved into how to authentically engage communities of color year-round, helping residents who were understandably distrustful of politicians to connect the dots between their daily lives, voting, and political empowerment. BLOC is the keystone of the remedy.
BLOC’s website clearly states their mission: “We work to ensure a high quality of life and access to opportunities for members of the Black community in Milwaukee and throughout Wisconsin.”
It goes on to explain, “Mass incarceration, racial bias in police forces, achievement gaps in education, and economic inequality are just a few of the issues that we're addressing head on. The best way to fix a problem is by starting at the root: that's why we're listening to voices from our community and fighting for measures that will actually make an impact.”
Listening, especially deep, year-round listening and continual engagement by BLOC Ambassadors who are from and intimately familiar with the heartbreak and potential of Milwaukee’s Black neighborhoods, builds trust. These are key ingredients to the organization’s success.
BLOC started with a simple question posed to Black Milwaukee residents: “What would it look like for your community to thrive?” Answers ranged from the need for speed bumps to afterschool programs, to economic and educational opportunity, to a community safe and “free of the oppressions of white supremacy and police brutality.” A detailed agenda was created, centering around “10 basic human needs: Safety, Housing, Health, Food, Water, Education, Purpose, Dignity, Democracy, and Freedom & Justice. . . visions designed to improve the quality of life and economic wellbeing of the Black community in Milwaukee..” The agenda was presented to “all levels of government, candidates, media, labor unions, churches and neighborhood organizations, and the non-profit, business, and philanthropic communities,” noting, “It will take all hands on deck to heal our community.”
BLOC helps realize these visions and goals through its constant presence and relatability, providing service-based actions such as a Christmas Toy Giveaway as well as strong civics classes on how government works and how to make your voice heard. BLOC Ambassadors undergo 30 hours of civics training, which they use to educate residents about how political involvement and voting empowers them individually and as a community. Ambassadors help people step-by-step with registering to vote—including those who have served felony sentences who have no idea they can vote. They organize people to show up for city council budget discussions to voice their priorities, hold forums for candidates, endorse those who will fight for the community’s needs, and emphasize the importance of political involvement and voting to hold elected officials accountable. Connecting the dots and seeing how engagement can change what seems hopeless converts non-voters into voters.
BLOC’s success in engaging and turning out a huge potential voting bloc previously put in the “Why bother?” column by conventional political strategists became apparent in the 2018 mid-terms. After a quarter million door knocks and more than 20,000 in-depth conversations, Black turnout in Milwaukee increased substantially, giving the edge to Democrat Tony Evers in his narrow victory over Governor Scott Walker and delivering wins to progressive candidates for the Lieutenant Governor, state Supreme Court, Milwaukee County sheriff, and county executive seat.
BLOC was ready to take on the crucial 2020 election when the pandemic hit. BLOC quickly shut down its office and pivoted to remote work. Fifty Ambassadors, all highly skilled at speaking face-to-face with community members, suddenly had a crash course in the basics of smartphones, computers, and the strange new territory of Zoom, texting, remote town halls, and digital organizing. They also had to figure out how to reach the many Milwaukee residents without any access to technology. All this in the midst of a virus whose devastating health and economic impacts hit poor communities of color—including BLOC’s staff and loved ones--particularly hard.
When people are in survival mode, paying attention to politics drops way down the to-do list. BLOC changed course to meet the moment, reaching out to see how people were doing, connecting them with essential resources, listening, understanding, assisting. This human-to-human response opened a path back to discussing the importance of elections and voting: Milwaukee Blacks knew and trusted BLOC for information of all kinds, from pandemic survival to politics.
All this happened less than a month before Wisconsin’s April 7 primary, which featured a hotly contested state Supreme Court race and other tests of whether the far-right Republican-controlled Legislature would continue to dominate state policy. BLOC and other Democratic organizations had already done phenomenal work registering people to vote and encouraging mail-in ballots. Still, there were problems galore, some unavoidable, some calculated to suppress the vote in urban, Black, Democratic-leaning enclaves. When Election Day rolled around, Milwaukee’s 180+ polling places were reduced to five. Too many residents were forced to choose between their health and their right to vote. BLOC staff and others who had worked so hard saw their hopes dim and their anxiety mount--worried for the well-being of Milwaukee, the state, and democracy itself.
Miraculously, voter turnout was huge, and BLOC-supported candidates won. Milwaukee residents stood in line for hours to cast their ballots. It was a surreal moment of inspiration and grief, knowing that the cost would soon show up in rising Covid-19 cases.
Lang notes it’s been hard to feel elated about these victories in the midst of so much suffering and loss, especially after George Floyd’s murder, which added a new layer of personal pain and activism for BLOC’s community. Now November is just around the corner, with the added traumas of police and white-vigilante shootings in nearby Kenosha, a Republican Party tripling down on lies, fear-mongering, and division. It’s a heavy burden to bear.
Yet Angela Lang, BLOC, and Milwaukee are not giving up. They’ve increased their Ambassadors, digital outreach, and community engagement, and have even begun to venture out in person to safely leave literature on people’s doors.
In February 2020, the New Yorker published Joseph O’Neill’s piece, “How Milwaukee Could Decide the Next President.” It appeared just before America’s pandemic-induced health and economic catastrophes and the uprisings after more murders of Black people. These events have illuminated for many Americans the injustices Milwaukee residents have endured for a long time. It is a time of danger and opportunity for our nation.
O’Neill writes, “What may be the most downtrodden urban community in the United States has a superpower: the potential to decide who will be the country’s next President.”
That’s a lot of pressure. Delivery depends on hard work, not magic. BLOC is up to the challenge, but we, too, must do our part. Please give as much as you can to support BLOC’s tireless efforts. Together we can help realize Wisconsin’s motto: “Forward!”
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