Everything’s Political with Junius Williams
Season 7, Episode 1: The Power of the Vote
Guest: Aljosie Aldrich Harding

TRANSCRIPT

And I think it was critical that we saw very early, our ancestors saw that without the power of the vote. They had no voice in how they would be governed. And they clearly understood that without a voice, the sheriff could run over them and do whatever he wanted. The legislature could pass any kind of laws they wanted that discriminated against them. And they were not even citizens without the ability to be involved in the process.

Hello, my name is Junius Williams and I'm your host on the podcast Everything's Political and this is our seventh season, episode one under the banner, The Power of the Vote. It's going to become obvious why I called it that, but just by way of introduction, I'm going to talk a little bit about me. In 1965, when I was a senior in college, I went down to Montgomery, Alabama to work with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee or SNCC in their parallel operation that they had set up in that city going while the major march was occurring from Selma to Montgomery. When we got there, we were trying to go to Selma, but Stokely Carmichael, one of the leaders in SNCC said, "Hey, where you going down there for? We need

you right here." In his Trinidadian accent, so we stayed, went downstairs from the SNCC office, got ready to march down to the state house. Cops wouldn't let us do that. Eventually, we did, and I got arrested. We went to jail. We went to Kilb Kilmer Kilby State Prison, excuse me. And I had to understand that why voting was important in the context of why people would sacrifice so much to get the vote. It was just that important. Later on, I moved to Newark, New Jersey, and I became the first campaign manager for Kenneth Allen Gibson in his successful campaign to become the first black mayor of Newark. Again, the vote

and still later at Rutgers University, I set up something called the Abbott Leadership Institute. which among other things in our attempt to show grown-ups and later uh adults, I'm sorry, grown-ups and later young people how important voting was in our arsenal of hope to make change on anywhere we went. So along the way and most recently so most recently I've noticed that there was a definite decline in enthusiasm for the vote and especially happen and that especially happens among young people. So I said well we got to talk about that on the podcast. Yeah. Therefore, I am here now with Aljosie Aldrich Harding, a good friend of mine. We are

, 1 secondpart of something called the the National Council of Elders. She is also, aside from being a member, she was a charter member. She she told me she was actually with it before because she and her husband Vincent Harding were talking about how to set this up. Then she's also a movement elder and resident at project south which is here in Atlanta where she is and she's an advisor to the Dorothy Cotton Institute in Ithaca, New York. So hello Aljosie. How are you? Hi Junius. Welcome to the program. Thank you. It's great to be with you. Aljosie and I have become friends as a member of the National Council of Elders and uh we we try to do one thing in

particular but we do many things but one of the things with these elders uh from across the country who have played some part of one important movement or another. We try to pass on the knowledge of what we know to another generation or generations of of young people. So, we we want to talk about the vote, uh, Al Josie. But since we talking about young people, I have a representative young man that I recorded at an event a little earlier this week. And I want you to listen to what he has to say. That kind of spells it out. And it's on this basis that you and I are going to have our conversation. The first thought that comes to mind with voting is disengagement. How so? We young people are disengaged.

Democracy does not work. The the time it takes to go vote and a lot of voting now is done digital or you may show up in person. No one really , 1 seconduses the stale mail anymore. Um but the time it may takes, let's say I go stand in the line for maybe 20 30 minutes. I mean that time is valuable time when I cast my vote and democracy doesn't work when when when the votes begin to accumulate and those votes are still not enough. Furthermore, disengagement, what is the use? What about the fact that so many people paid heavy dues for you to vote? Does that matter? Yes and no. I mean, it's real simple. I can appreciate that. Yet, when we're

dealing right in the here and now, like, for example, gas prices, how can my vote assist bringing the gas prices down? That's that that's that's complicated to even answer. That's a complicated question. So, if if I believe, think, or feel Go ahead. You had a question. If I believe, think, or feel that my vote and let's say 10,000 other votes is not going to make any major change. We're back to that famous question. What's the use? What do you think of that, Aljosie? Well, I have to say that I don't think the young man has a strong argument about why he doesn't want to vote. He said it's about disengagement and he even mentioned that it might take 20 or 30 minutes to stand in line and he'd be

using his time and he didn't think that might be the great best use of his time to stand there and vote when it didn't make a difference and he didn't see how it was going to affect his daytoday with gas prices. And I think he's totally wrong. I think he's coming from the wrong perspective. First of all, if I would say so, Junius, I I would think that he doesn't see himself connected to history and he's he values his own importance too much in terms of um whether no let maybe he doesn't value himself enough. Maybe that's what I want to say in terms of the role of one to be involved and to make a difference.

So why is the vote so important? Why what would you tell him about the importance? First of all, as I would talk to him and he talks about 20 or 30 minutes standing in line, I would say that's a young person's uh shall I what would I say to him? uh over evaluation or of 20 or 30 minutes compared to the years that people spent in order to be able to vote. the amount of time to learn how to write their names and to pass the various tests that the South set up to keep people from voting and the times that people stood on the steps trying to get in there to vote or were beaten on the head like Fannie Lou Hamer and for forced away from a job she had been on 30 years uh because she went to register

for vote that he is making from my point of view a minor comparison of the value of his time on the value of the times of people before him and the effort they put in to get him to the day where he can make that kind of choice about whether he'll vote or not. Why did our ancestors struggle so hard for the right to vote to be included on that role? I think first of all we talk about citizenship. Are you a citizen of this country? What does it mean? Are you equal to other people? And going back to the time that we could actually vote the first time a in the time of reconstruction when we could vote briefly, we could see the

power of the vote. We could see that we could elect officials and that those people could help make decisions about what was happening in the country. And then as soon as that was turned over what about 1880 something um we saw again we were back in a period where we had no power. We had no voice in terms of who would be representing us and what would be happening. And I think it was critical that we saw very early our ancestors saw that without the power of the vote they had no voice in how they would be governed. And they clearly understood that without a voice, the sheriff could run over them and do whatever he wanted. The

legislature could pass any kind of laws they wanted that discriminated against them. And they were not even citizens without the ability to be involved in the process. Now, there's uh another young lady that I want you to listen to who says, "Well, we want to listen to what she says and uh you can you can you can pick up from there." I think that voting is important on a local level because I think those problems seem a little bit closer to home and more like they can be affected by my vote, but sometimes on a presidential level, I don't feel like my vote is making that much of a difference. Why?

And I don't know. I just cuz I feel like on all the votes they group together and my one little vote won't change the whole, you know, the whole turnout of the state and then the whole turnout of the whole presidential. But I feel like I could say that other people in my generation would agree, you know, cuz we don't feel influenced to vote because we feel like nothing's really going to change in our inner city from the president like the president. She said that voting was important on the local level, but she didn't think it was important on the national level. And again, Junius, I think uh I'm I'm kind sad to say, but I think it speaks to the

lack of information, the lack of understanding of some of our young people because to say that the vote doesn't make a difference on a national level totally overlooks the role of the government on the national level. And right now today especially we can see the importance of people in the legislature and the importance of the president in deciding whether or not our tax dollars are spent in the billions on wars versus in this country on housing or medical care or food subsidies. that they have recently cut the SNAP payments of food subsidies to people that the people in the legislature um just go along and accept what happens. We don't seem to have that counterbalance that our three branches

of government are supposed to answer because the president uh has the acceptance and the approval of a variety of people who've been elected in the legislature and even more important to me in the Supreme Court where he's appointed what at least three of the people who are presently on the Supreme Court and who go along with the decisions and re and and just let him run rampant in terms of the things and even other things about the Supreme Court. The young lady didn't say anything about whether or not she's concerned about health care or women's a woman's right to choose whether or not she would have

a baby. And so, and abortions have been overturned. And recently a woman died who had uh all kinds of health issues, high blood pressure and diabetes and other things that mandated her not carrying a baby to her and she could not get a legal abortion and die. So if you have a president who has the authority to appoint people and a supreme court that does not overturn some of those people and you have a legislature that's going along with whatever this ill informed and not well let's just say ill-informed for the moment president. It to me speaks very much to the power of the national government. And so that young lady is

very wrong when she says that she doesn't see that voting makes any difference on the national level. Now you and I are about the same age. We're we're we're elders. If if we weren't elder, we wouldn't be in the National Council of Elders. So uh so we grew up similarly. I don't know where you grew up, but I grew up in Richmond. Where did you grow up? I grew up in Salisbury, North Carolina. Born there in 1941. All right. So, why is it that we feel so strongly about voting and young people today have the opinions that our two friends seem to have? Well, it seems that they have from my point of view again a disconnection from

history and from their relationship to anybody who came before them or any responsibility to anyone who will come after them. They seem to think that all that matters now is what they think and what they do and how they feel. And I am just disheartened many times by the young people who do not have that connection to the past, the present, and the future. And I think that's maybe a spiritual issue, not a religious issue, but a spiritual issue that they feel individualistic and not connected to other people, not a part of community or part of that we are all God's children. Now, I know that you're speaking quite frankly, and I'm wondering, is that

going to make some of our young folks mad at us, and does that matter if we tell them that? I think it would be good to have them one-on-one, face to face, and just continue to ask them for th their opinions. Why do you feel like this? What has brought you to this point? I don't want to tell them that they're wrong, but I do want to tell them how I feel about it and how I came to really care about uh from all from the beginning of the our people who were enslaved, how I care so deeply about what happened to them, about their struggles, about all the things that they had to do after they they freed themselves by pressing the government and by in many ways,

yes, pressing the government to have to make a decision about freedom and about enslavement and whether or not it was right and and and could continue. I'm concerned that we're in a time when a lot of our young people are more individualistic. They are more concerned about their personal material things and I really Junius I think that is the reason a lot of them are depressed and despondent and in trauma because they don't have any connection to the past and the future and they only see what they are doing how it's impacting them and they have a sense of fear and dread because they don't have that that support that

understanding that there's history is a long what shall I say it's it's not a sprint it's a long distance struggle a long run and if you only see what you're doing and how it affects you and you don't see how you can personally change it I would see how you would be disengaged and fearful and alarmed Now, we've been talking about young people and the two people we had as exemplars of uh this reluctance to vote. I I don't I don't think they they're anti to vote. One of them said it just didn't do any good and the other one said we can vote locally. Uh but nationally, she doesn't think it's that important. Uh but we're not just talking about young people.

I mean there were several hundred several thousands of people who are who are older than they are who didn't vote in the last election. So true. What is the universal connection between all of the folks who just don't see that the vote matters or the vote not that important or the vote is just not something they want to do? What what is the the connection? What's the universal connection between all of those people? I think it's a moral issue. I think it's a moral issue and a spiritual issue in the sense of are you connected to other people? Are you your brother's keeper? Are you called to carry out some of the responsibilities of a citizen? Does what

you do matter? Do you have to see how everything is going to turn out? But what is your responsibility as a citizen? Vincent used to say he was a citizen of a country that did not yet exist, but it must be so. So I think the problem the primary problem is our disengagement from our responsibility to be citizens to work to force this country to become the kind of country that appreciates all of the people who live here as citizens and and values them. It's it's to get beyond just little me and mine and what is happening to me and I don't have mine today so I'm going to take my marles and go home.

So how do we show people that voting does work? Well, just to you just to use the example that uh the young man talked about, uh voting in terms of gas prices, voting in terms of uh grocery prices, uh why is it that that just doesn't stand out and some people say, "Hey, I got to go vote because that's the way I'm going to change it." Well, we have a real problem now. Growing up in Salisbury, North Carolina, I had excellent teachers even though I was going to school in a segregated system. But I was going to school in a segregated system with informed teachers who were helping me learn history, who

were helping me learn about our life here in this country. And one of the main problems from my point of view again is that our education for our young people has broken down and not just in the schools but also in many cases in the homes. So that there's a disconnect between the young people and their awareness of what has happened before them to even get them to this point where they can go into any store that they want and buy some food or where they where they can feel safe at home. that the sheriff is not just going to come and knock the door down and drag them out about nothing or that somebody can get shot in full view and there won't be a fair trial. Many of them have

no awareness of what has happened in the past. And even those who do seem to have a fear or I would say a sense that well if something bad happened in the past and you all didn't finish it then what's the point now? They seem to have an understanding that the major problems in history can be ser solved in 20 years or 30 years. And if we didn't fix it, what the heck? They'll just buy what they want and use their money any way they want and just float along in their disconnected state. A multi-generational disconnect cuz you and I go back to the same time. We're about the same age in Richmond. I could say the same thing that you just said about my teachers, about my parent.

Maybe it was because uh segregation was so obvious. Uh I mean, Jim Crow was obvious because we just couldn't go to certain places. We just couldn't do certain things. Uh is is that what it is? I mean, do we have to have the the the naked face of the devil right there before we we respond and say, "Well, maybe we better go out and vote cuz I mean or or or is it something that I don't understand, you don't understand? Is there some other spiritual disconnection uh that has been stimulated by the fact that we have made significant progress? I think there is yes the a spiritual connection there is a spiritual disconnection you know um that uh Howard

um Dr. Howard Thurman would talk about us as um citizens who had their backs against the wall. And he would talk about um he would talk about the the putting your concerns on some altar and he saw something larger than the individual. I think one of the main problems today in this time both with young people and older people almost up to our age um Junius is that there seems to be a break in many people's understanding of their relationship to other people and not just other black people but other people of color, other white people, other people. There seems to be a disconnect between what do I owe

other people in the sense of they're having the right to a good life? What is my role? What is my responsibility? It seems that we don't even talk about that very much now. It's all about what I want and am I going to the football game this week? And am I getting some new shoes? And what about the new car that's coming out? There seems to be a major disconnect with people relating to other people. Yet today we have the highest report of depression and trauma and fear that we've ever had. Why is that? So how did it get like that? I don't think it's just religion. I think as I was saying earlier to function in in this society to

function in any society you have to have a purpose. You have to feel some sense of responsibility and be engaged in something. You have to find something that motivates you to to keep you going to get you involved in life. And if somehow something has broken down in society where you don't feel a connection to other people, you don't feel a responsibility to be a part of the change, as June Jordan would say, be the change you want to see. If you don't feel that and you're and your particular needs aren't being met and you don't understand history, you don't understand the struggles, you don't understand that history is is is kind of cyclical and

you make some changes three or four steps forward, two or three back, two or three sideways. If you don't understand that and you think everything is supposed to been s solved and everything is supposed to be wonderful, I think you go into some kind of serious depression or serious uh sense of lack of understanding about what is the purpose of a human being? What is our purpose here on earth? So I need to ask you Junius, do you feel a connection to change that the young people don't seem to to have? Oh yeah. Oh yeah, I feel. And where do you think it came from? Uh well, what the first part of your question, if I didn't feel that way, I wouldn't be

doing the work that I'm doing. Uh and and the answer to the second part, I think that the progress that we made kept us from defining what it is we really want to do, what we want to make, what is progress, where do we go? and and if we don't know where we've been, then we're not going to know where we want to go or need to go. So, I think that's part of it. And you said some of that as well when you were speaking and I don't want to take too much time cuz you're the guest and I'm the host. So, we got to Well, we're having a conversation here. We are. We are. But I just wanted to make sure that uh your point of view gets out of here. I'm going to have plenty of time to talk, but I I want to

ask I want to ask you another question and maybe we can talk about that as well. Uh what do you think needs to be done? Well, it's a hard question and let me say that I have three adult children, nine grandchildren. The youngest is only nine, but most of them are young adults. They are from 18 to 26. And then three great grandchildren. So I am real concerned about what can be done. Just the other day I was calling one of them who's away in college and asked them what is his voting plan because he's in Michigan and he's a citizen a resident of Georgia. What is your voting plan? What did he say? I don't have one. Nana, you got to get one. Are you going to ma mail in your ballot? What are you going

to do? So I'm sharing with I'm just speaking to now on the role of one grandmother. I'm sharing I'm connecting with all of these children grandchildren and I use them to talk to their friends too. And sometimes I bribe them by sending a little extra money. I like are you taking anybody to the poll with you? Have you checked with some of your friends in the dorm to see if they're registered? And the thing this year is when you vote in November, if you show me your sticker that says you voted, there may be a little reward, you know, that I'll be putting out Cash App or Zale up to you. So, I think one of the

things you can do is to be individually involved with all the young people within your sphere that you have access to. Then you can be a part of the local organizing in your community. But you know, Junius, I think if we got some of the young people involved in some of the voter education and voter registration projects, they might become more engaged. If we got some of them more engaged in maybe going out to help register people to vote and talking to some of the people about why they are voting or if we got some of them set up to drive people to the polls or somehow more engaged. I think when you're engaged in work that you get a better understanding of

why something is important and even more than that you get a a sense almost like belonging to a game from what I've heard you get that sense of connection and camaraderie and so I think one of the main things we can do in this phase is to talk to all the young people that we have access to to tell them why we think it's important , 1 secondto send them articles to connect them for example to the SNCC Legacy Project and they can go in and and look at this the all those materials at the SNCC Legacy Project or they can go to YouTube and look at some of the videos and they can see CT Vivian standing on the steps of the courthouse so proudly as he's being threatened and he's standing there

proudly or as we listen to Fannie Lou Hamer and her uh sharecropping person saying, you know, you're going to leave. You have to go. You've been here for 20 years, but you're going to have to move now today because you want to register to vote. And she said, I went to register for me. I didn't register for you. And she left. So, I think we have to connect them to the stories, the history, and get them involved in some of the work today. And that might make some difference. My answer is a little different. I think that in my experience, voting is one thing you do to get power. But the first thing to do is to establish amongst young people and I'm going all the way back to

not just the the young people we talk today that age, but little young little older than that. substantially older than that. People don't understand power. And if you don't if you don't understand power, you're not going to take advantage of the tools that you have. Now, I don't know how white people establish that. Maybe that's talked about at the dinner table or something or other and they see what or I think what it is that they they see what they have. They they privileged. That's why we talk about privilege. I think what we have to do is to put them on the road to is getting power and then you can see that voting is just one

tool in that arsenal that we have. I call it the arsenal of hope and that power may come from an understanding and participation in direct action. I felt much different about voting after I participated in confrontational politics and I saw that here in Newark as well. We got people to vote were hanging out in the bars but when they realized that's part of what uh my group Napa in New Planet Association was doing for kids. They came out of the bars and went and voted. So, I think that's that's that's a part of the the answer that the only uh folk like you and me are going to have to sit down and figure out how to work that out because it can be institutionalized. I had an organization called called the uh more recently I had

something called the Abbott Leadership Institute which I'll talk about a little bit more but as we as as we go along but uh the understanding the common denominator for everything we did was to talk to young people and adults about how to get some power and I think if you do that the voting will come naturally. On that note, yes, let me just say I thoroughly agree with you about power and helping people to understand about power and letting them see that obviously there is some fear of our power with all of the actions to keep us from being able to vote to restrict our easy access to voting. That is an obvious indication

that there was a fear of our power. And I would I would also use some tools, some other kinds of things as we help them understand about power to show them how we did acquire some of that power. I would mention again Dorothy Cotton and that uh documentary you have about her move when the spirit says move which is a powerful documentary documentary about citizen education schools Septima Clark and then later Dorothy Cotton and the more than oh several hundred of those schools that were in the south that help people to even learn to write their names and answer questions and register to vote and begin that process to power.

I think power is critical. I I thoroughly agree with you. Power is the missing ingredient. We're going to talk some more about it. Uh I've enjoyed talking with you here today. Uh we're going to continue as we go along. But with this, I'll have more guests and we're going to explore that whole concept of power as the common denominator with voting because yes, there is power in the vote. Thank you, Aljosie, for joining with me and I look forward to seeing you more.

, 1 secondThank you. Everything's political podcast is sponsored by the Center for Education and Juvenile Justice. It is supported by the Terrell Foundation, PSEG Foundation, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and by listeners like you. It is produced in New by Stephanie Gergeres, Chay Williams, and by me, Junius Williams, with steam music by Anthony Ant Jackson. Check out earlier episodes and subscribe to us on YouTube, Apple Podcast, and Spotify, and follow us on Instagram and Facebook. See you next time. And remember, stay political.