Tales From the Frontline: Democracy North Carolina

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demnc — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 16:53:31 +0000

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Why Bother Pretending

nmaspenson — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 17:09:15 +0000

In the most recent tiding of our backslide to oligarchy, it has been revealed that some politicians are dealing with the ever-mounting cost of running political campaigns by augmenting their war chest with their own vast fortunes. As more and more self-financed candidates crop up in numerous elections, the fragile illusion that any citizen with the will to represent their peers and enough popular support can win office is in danger of being shattered. Without some measure of reaction to restore our democracy, there is little that can be done to protect us from the formation of a ruling class. If we truly live in a democracy, then the opportunity to run for office should be available to anyone. If we do not, and an oligarchy has formed around us, then I’d at least appreciate a little honesty.

Hang the Net! …Winston-Salem

skmaxwell — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 17:03:10 +0000

Jim Caldwell, Head Coach of the Indianapolis Colts, at the "Hang the Net" event with Ray Robinson (at left) and Sean Maxwell.

This week was all about some Youth Voter Pledge cards. We hit the ground running on Monday and Tuesday by going to local recreation centers and talking to kids about voting. We were looking especially for high school students but when the “big kids” started signing the cards all the little ones wanted to do it too. So yeah, we ended up with a few voter pledge cards from some 12 year olds, but hey… can’t start early enough!

We had a one-on-one meeting this week with Mr. Tim Grant, director of Winston-Salem Parks and Recreation. He was very helpful and identified several upcoming opportunities for us to get into contact with lots of youth. He showed us all around the office, introduced us to everyone, and even referred us to a city-sponsored Youth Council that might be a good “focus group” for future youth-oriented Dem NC endeavors.

One of the events Mr. Grant told us about was the annual “Hang the Net” competition at Hanes Hoisery recreation center. The event featured Wake Forest basketball players, local street ball legends, Cameron Kent from WXII 12 News, and Coach Jim Caldwell of the Indianapolis Colts (see picture above). The event featured a three point shooting contest and slam dunk contest. We were able to set up a booth in the lobby and, with everyone lured nearby thanks to the free Frosty coupons, sign dozens of pledge cards to reach our goal.

This week also saw plenty of VAN phonebank action, as well as some short trips to Greensboro campuses to plan for fall GOTV. At North Carolina A&T University we met with Mrs. Nastasha Johnson at the Bluford Library, who then connected us into all the right people for our August plan to perform voter registration at the A&T Welcome Week.

I’m going to have to cut this blog post a little short since we have to get outta the office and back to Greensboro. We are doing some flier distribution today for next week’s Community Movie Night event with Mr. Darryl Hunt. We also hope to stop by the Beloved Community Center and liaison with Rev. Nelson Johnson, who is planning some GOTV efforts. We think there is a good opportunity for some collaboration.

We hope everyone is having a great week!

-Sean Maxwell and Ray Robinson

An Intern’s Job is Never Done… Thank Goodness!!!

fayettevilleteam — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 17:17:03 +0000

Shock, awe and amazement. These three little words are the best ways to describe the reaction we get from Fayetteville’s citizens whenever we invite them to our neutral, informal City Council/ County Commissioner Meet and Greet. People, including some of the city council members and the county commissioners that have invited to the event, are having the hardest time believing this event is actually going to become a reality. ( “City Council AND County Commissioners in the same room? Together? Are you serious?/ WOW!!!” is the general response to our invitation.) Well, those non-believers will be in for a treat we host the meet and greet next Saturday. All the hard work An-Que, Ashley, and I have done these past couple of weeks will finally pay off in a open, friendly Meet and Greet that gives the general public access to the officials that oversee the details of their daily lives. This Meet and Greet also gives the officials the opportunity to talk to each other and join Democracy North Carolina as we attempt a county-wide Get Out The Vote (GOTV) training program.

As of right now, we have four confirmed guests to our Meet and Greet!!! I know that the three exclamation points that follow that statement seem a little unnecessary but considering that July is typically when most of these officials take time off for family vacations, an annual conference, and the like, it’s amazing that we got even that many officials to confirm. I’m hoping that the fact that all three groups will be represented (the people, the council, and the commissioners) will foster true,open, healthy dialogue, which in turn will lead to transparent actions towards change and progress.

WHEW! I know that is a lot of information to take in but because an intern’s job is never done ( gotta love progress and change) we’re already planning a Get Out The Vote training program in Wilmington, as well as a possible GOTV program among Fayetteville’s high schools. I’m so excited about all things we have going on in our field areas, but like I said, ” an intern’s job is never done” so I’ll have to get to you about all the progress we’re making later.

Until Next Time,

*Amanda*

P.S. We interviewed a few folks at Fayetteville’s mall and on the Fayetteville State campus, so look out for those blogs, they’re coming soon!!!!

GOTV and Youth Engagement, Winston-Salem Team

skmaxwell — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 17:06:45 +0000

Winston Lake YMCA Middle Schoolers

Another busy week has flown by, and it’s incredible that there are only two weeks remaining in our Democracy Summer experience. We had some great events occur this week which will go a long way to help our strategies for increased voter participation, youth civic engagement, and electoral reforms.

On Monday we traveled a few minutes down the road to the Winston Lake YMCA to speak with middle school kids who were participating in a Model U.N. club (picture above). We decided to employ a debate format that they already knew very well in order to get them thinking about youth participation in civic affairs. The students had plenty to say about problems in their schools and neighborhoods, they just needed someone to ask their opinion! We told them about the structure of the Forsyth County Board of Education and encouraged them to pay attention to local politics, current events, and to always stand up and voice their concerns. After this mini-workshop, Ray and I were destroyed in a quick pickup basketball game between us and two of the students. Our height advantage meant nothing and they seriously asked us if we were actually trying… embarrassing indeed!

Tuesday was probably the most eventful day of all this week. Ray and I had an informal interview with Jordan Green of YES!Weekly magazine, a publication in Greensboro that covers local events and politics. Mr. Green then came to our Guilford County GOTV meeting that evening. We had probably around 15 to 20 people show up to discuss ways to increase voter participation. It was a diverse group, from a rising 10th grader to a woman in her 80s. Everyone agreed that focusing on registration in turnout in the month right before an election was too little too late. The meeting generated lots of good feedback and some additional contacts in Greensboro to assist in Democracy NC’s mission. We will likely return to Guilford County to meet with some of the attendees who requested some GOTV and registration training.

Wednesday featured an extremely productive meeting with Dr. David Mount of the Maya Angelou Center for Health Equity at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center. He is Director of Community Outreach for the center, and told us about his strategies for connecting to other organizations and coalition building. He also gave us permission to come to various free community health fairs that are held around the county. At these events, residents in low-income neighborhoods can get free treatment and testing for illnesses and disease. He agreed that having information on civic engagement and voting rights would be helpful and that many facets of their mission overlap with Democracy NC’s goals too. Later that afternoon we met with Mr. T.C. Muhammad in Greensboro, who is involved in GOTV efforts and the Hip Hop Caucus. He gave us numerous contacts in the Guilford County area as well as some avenues to check out at NC A&T University. Hopefully Dem NC can team up with Mr. Muhammad in the fall for some major GOTV campaigns.

Thursday involved a return to the Winston Lake YMCA for a talk with some high school students. It followed a similar format as our Monday meeting, but obviously the discussion was a little more nuanced and we could register them to vote! They also signed some of our Youth pledge cards. It was amazing listening to their stories, particularly one student who was not only captain of his football team, but also worked nearly full-time at Sonic to pay for his own food and car insurance as well as take care of his younger cousins. The responsibility he was shouldering was inspiring and at the same time made our efforts to get their voices heard feel much more meaningful.

On top of all these experiences we have been phonebanking and planning for a voter registration and youth pledge card drive. And tomorrow we are attending the Stone Soul Picnic in Burlington. It’s been a busy week but it has felt good!

Until next time,

Sean Maxwell (and Ray Robinson)

The Clock is Steady Tickin’

durhamteam — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 18:09:59 +0000

Time is really flying. I looked at the calender today and said, “WHOA”. I’m pretty sure all the other interns feel the same way. Who knew theses days would pass by so fast?!

Jenn and I went to a Drinking Liberally book club meeting at the Traction house last week. That was great. The people there were really friendly. On Saturday we went out to Fayetteville for a banquet that was held by a group of African American Muslims, where Jenn was the key note speaker. She did a great job. They had a bunch of workshops that we did not get to attend, but we did make it for the dinner. The food was AMAZING. It was so interesting to listen and learn about their religion and other aspects of their culture. Everyone there was very welcoming. I should have taken a plate home (they offered!). Yesterday Jenn and I were on WCOM Radio hosted by Bill Hendrickson. My very first radio show! It was great.

With everything that’s going on, I finally feel like my efforts are making a difference somewhere. I have been doing speaking engagements at NCCU and I went to Athens Drive High School (where I graduated from) to do some voter registration and get some VOE post-cards signed. Its strange. For some reason people are very hesitant about getting registered to vote, but they’ll quickly put their information on a post-card. I just don’t understand that. Anyways, it is safe to say that I’m making progress. I’m waiting to hear back from a few community centers in the Raleigh/Durham area. And I am also in the process of contacting the Women’s Center of NCCU. Hopefully I can make some things happen before the month is up. The clock is tickin’ away and we all still have a lot to get accomplished!

Peace, Love, & Politics,

Juanita

Welcome to Johnson C. Smith

charlotteds2010 — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 18:32:09 +0000

So a main part of our week was our time spent at JCSU during freshman orientation. We were there Thursday and Friday from 7:30 am- 5:00 pm registering the new students to vote in Charlotte. We reached our 100 goal!! Erica and I had to hand paint signs that said “Sign Up Here To Vote! Be Part Of Our Community” and we were the only booth without at tent. At least they had free water for us and we got to eat in the cafeteria for free. It was really fun to see how excited the students were to register, especially the ones who were registering for the first time! They were really interested because Erica, being student body president, told them about the rides to the polls that the university was doing and explained how everyone was going to go vote together.

We are in the final stretch before our July 24th event and all the colleges but one have accepted our invitation to participate! We are making the final preparations to film the Public Service Announcement, arrange seating and speakers, and arrange food to be ordered. We have three days of phonebanking this week but I feel like we have met so many of our summer goals already! There is always something new for us to do, some new obstacle to overcome and in the end I feel our all our work this summer will be worth it!

Alannah & Erica– Charlotte!!

Back to reality!

gvilleds2010 — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 19:56:40 +0000

After a very nice long weekend it’s back to work here in G-vegas. This week we are focusing getting the word out about the coalition meeting in Washington on the 16^th. We are hoping for a great turnout. We are also working to increase the youth GOTV pledges. The summer is flying past and I didn’t realize that we only have a few more weeks. I, of course wish there were youth around which would of course make getting the youth GOTV pledges a lot easier. We spent Tuesday in Washington meeting with the Board of Elections and a prominent minister and community organizer Rev. David Moore. We heard very two different sides of the current conditions of Beaufort County’s political community. The Board gave us the much skewed impression that Beaufort County had the best voting average in all of NC and that there wasn’t any need for improvement. We felt as if they were being very defensive when we offered to help with the lack of voter participation. Rev. Moore painted another picture. After waiting for the busy Reverend to get off of his cell, computer and conference call, all of which he was on at the same time we discussed the problem with the youth voters. He advised us to take direct action and hit the problem full force.

Also, we are looking forward to going to Wilson Saturday to attend the African American Family Day, where Ana and I will be registering new voters and spreading the word about GOTV!

Until Next time

Joyce

Back from the vacation!

gvilleds2010 — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 19:56:02 +0000

After a much deserved vacation, Joyce and I regrouped to brainstorm over ways to engage the community in our last couple of weeks. We struck gold last week with our Pitt County Coalition meeting where Dr.Powers ( the best Sociology professor) was able to link us with the Interfaith Alliance director to get more faith centers involved with our ‘Souls to the Polls’ event. Also, Pastor Coles updated me on the status of my interview that will be available on DVD. ( I’m hitting Hollywood hard!) After I receive the copy of the DVD, I will load it on the democracy-nc.org website to grace you all with my spectacular interviewing skills. On Tuesday, we met with Rev. Moore who was able to fit us in his busy schedule ( by busy schedule, I mean we had to sit in on all his phone calls) and he discussed with us ways to get Beaufort County on the right direction towards a successful voter turn out this November.

We have scheduled a voter training schedule with Jovenes Lations en Accion where most of the teens are eligible to pre-regrister. On a even more successful note, I got a warm reception from the Minority Voice organization that will allow us to add an article on Democracy NC and a possible interview.

Tomorrow we will be over in Wilson at the African American Family Day Festival, where we will have a booth to register new voters and talk to people about Dem NC, voting, and much more!!!!

Focusing on the Future, Winston-Salem

skmaxwell — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 17:28:13 +0000

This week, despite being shortened due to the Independence Day Holiday, has been jam-packed with activities. Ray and I settled back into our office on Tuesday and began implementing our plans for our many events coming up this month. On Wednesday we had some meetings with community activists in both Forsyth and Guilford Counties, and on Thursday we threw our effort toward generating phone calls to the N.C. General Assembly.

Next week, we will be leading two youth forums at the Winston Lake YMCA for kids in their Youth Achiever programs. The Boys and Girls Club is also sending participants. We have been in constant contact with the program managers at the Y, finalizing our agenda and confirming our message. We even were able to bring in City Councilwoman D.D. Adams as a guest speaker for the kids. In addition to these two programs, we have organized a Greensboro Coalition meeting on July 13th for GOTV planning and discussions on electoral reform. All in all, next week is sure to be busy, but it will be exciting to see all of our planning come together and result in something positive for the community.

This week on Wednesday, we met with Mr. Michael Thomas of the Goodwill Re-Entry program in Winston-Salem. We talked about his work in the prison system and his classes for re-integration into society, finding a job, and becoming a productive citizen. We were able to provide him with voter registration forms and informational literature about regaining citizenship rights after being incarcerated. Later in the afternoon, we met Mr. Fahiym Hanna, who operates in Guilford County. He is our age and already has his own grassroots organizing experience through various community groups. We spoke with him about reaching out to Guilford County youth and what organizations could assist us in our mission for youth civic engagement and voter participation. Both meetings were highly informative and certainly aided us in our mission for GOTV.

Thursday was almost a complete blur. Coming into work in the afternoon, HQ alerted us that the N.C. House was considering Senate Bill 20, which aimed to incrementally expand Voter-Owned Elections to the state Treasurer’s Race and for one additional municipality. We began making calls to past supporters in the early evening, encouraging them to contact their elected officials. We had also organized a W-S Voting Rights Coalition community meeting in our office for GOTV planning that night, so we had all the participants call both their Senator and Representatives in the General Assembly (see pictures at top). Thursday’s events proved that everything moves so unexpectedly in the legislative process. It really forces activists to constantly adapt and quickly respond with little warning.

In other news, we have moved the date for our Greensboro community movie night to later in July so that Darryl Hunt can come speak. Also in the works… a youth forum for high school students to motivate and train them to register their fellow classmates to vote in the fall. We already have space booked at the public library, and are currently in the process of contacting these students that indicated they were interested in such an activity.

So, it’s definitely been another packed week here in Winston-Salem, but we are very excited about our upcoming events and our GOTV and youth civic engagement efforts. I think it’s safe to say we are virtually “humming” on all cylinders.

Until next time,

Sean Maxwell and Ray Robinson