SPLC's $100,000 Award to AISJ Fuels Grassroots Voter Engagement

SPLC's $100,000 Award to AISJ

Fuels Grassroots Voter Engagement

My first act of social resistance and civic empowerment came at age 18, when I participated in my first election in Prichard, Alabama, as a registered voter. I distinctly recall it being an event of sorts, since many people from my community were not only involved in voter registration but were also poll workers.

One such worker was Mrs. Bea Burns, who ran a child care center with her husband in my neighborhood. I stayed with the Burnses when my parents needed child care outside of regular business hours, and it was there that I absorbed, from a very young age, the connection between child care, neighborhoods, and voter engagement.

This child care provider also cared about others in our community, helping them understand the importance of civic engagement and registering them to vote. This Black woman, whose role as a child care provider gave her a unique bond with the families in our area, used her connections to help people gain access to power at the ballot box in her own deliberate way. It was all rooted in relationships. In trust. In community. One of the reasons I believe in the power of voter engagement at the grassroots level is because I saw, firsthand, how Mrs. Bea facilitated thousands of voter registrations by people from Prichard, and ensured that these folks actually cast their votes on election days.

Fast forward to April 2021, when Alabama Institute for Social Justice (AISJ) received a two-year, $100,000 Vote Your Voice grant from Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), which awarded a total of $11,285,000 to 55 groups across the Deep South. Last year, AISJ received an additional $12,000 in voter-engagement funding from the Black Belt Community Foundation, through the leadership of Black Voters Matter co-founder LaTosha Brown. Utilizing these grants, AISJ is investing in organizers and community-engagement supports, assessing the effectiveness of messaging strategies and tactics, and analyzing early voting data to facilitate “Get Out the Vote” (GOTV) efforts in upcoming local and midterm elections.

These awards allow AISJ to build upon the many relationships we have established with small, under-the-radar, grassroots organizations that do this type of work with very few resources. As an organization, AISJ has a 50-year history of engaging the community, particularly in rural parts of the state. But many of us at AISJ are also deeply involved in other work in our communities, through churches and civic organizations. Because of our continuous efforts to cultivate relationships, we are able to engage the community and forge cooperation in many areas. That is our superpower.

While AISJ is nonpartisan in its efforts, facilitating voter engagement is a critical strategy that empowers those in marginalized communities to remove, keep, and continue to elect politicians who will work on their behalf through cooperation with AISJ and other organizations, such as the Alabama Voting Coalition (AVC). Under the leadership of ACLU of Alabama’s Policy and Advocacy Director, Dillon Nettles, AVC pulls groups and organizations together to both educate and position them to advocate for bills that will ease the burden on disenfranchised Alabamian voters.

This is necessary at a time when many states’ legislatures nationwide are passing measures to curtail voter access. For example, this year’s Alabama State Legislature passed a curbside voting ban that forbids election workers from creating curbside areas for people to vote. This results in fewer opportunities for citizens to cast ballots, especially those who are physically unable to stand in long lines outside of polling places, such as the elderly and disabled.

The curbside voting ban illustrates that the effort to ensure voting rights for all is a journey, not a destination. It is never done. This is what has influenced my life’s path in advocating for social justice and racial reconciliation, and my understanding of how voting, principled leadership, and relationships intertwine to help communities thrive. This work, which gives voice to those who are often voiceless, is needed in Alabama just as much as it was when I first registered to vote at 18. For me, this is an opportunity to pay forward the commitment to civic engagement that Mrs. Bea Burns helped instill in me years ago.

On Saturday, June 19th, from 11:00 AM - 6:00 PM, AISJ will have a voter registration table set up at the 2021 Juneteenth Celebration in the 200 block of Montgomery Street on Troy University’s Montgomery campus, hosted by the university’s Rosa Parks Museum. You’re invited to attend. Perhaps you will commit your first act of resistance or civic engagement by registering or empowering others to become registered voters. Join us!