Nearly one hundred people attended our September 17webinar event “Voting While Black—From the Early Struggles for Voting Rights to Today’s Obstacles and Challenges.”
The program featured three prominent Black Pasadena-area women, two of them LWV-PA members. It opened with a living history experience: a conversation between NAACP Pasadena leader Juanita West-Tillman and 95-year-old local icon Juanita DeVaughn, as Ms. DeVaughn shared her memories of trying to vote in Jim Crow Alabama and working alongside Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in the fight for equality. She kept us spellbound, as she told of having to pass outrageous “tests” like reciting the Constitution by heart, just in order to register, and of persisting in the struggle despite living with the daily fear of violence from white supremacists. Having spent her life teaching and mentoring young people, both in Alabama and here after moving to Altadena, DeVaughn closed with inspiring words for youth everywhere: Your right to vote is a precious thing and your future is in your hands—if you get involved and vote!
This conversation was followed by an informative talk by LWV-PA member and well-known community advocate Lena Kennedy, bringing us up to today’s situation. Voter suppression continues, although it is less overt and violent than in DeVaughn’s time. Legal obstacles such as purging of voter rolls, closing of polling places in minority neighborhoods, oppressive voter I.D. laws, and now limiting early voting periods and mail-in ballots have an impact on everyone, but especially on Black citizens. Kennedy offered a perceptive analysis of a subtler obstacle to full participation in the election system: disengagement and hopelessness, particularly among minority youth. She pointed out that economic hopelessness due to lack of education and job opportunities is a source of civic hopelessness. Kennedy ended by encouraging League members and others in the audience to contact, join, and support the many local groups that are working to overcome these obstacles, which she cited in her talk.
President Martha Zavala closed the morning, urging everyone to participate in the League’s ongoing get-out-the-vote activities and to share the election information resources so easily accessible from “Voter Information & Election News” on the LWV-PA website’s homepage, www.lwv-pa.org.
If you were unable to attend, you can view the presentations by going to www.lwv-pa.org and scrolling down to click on “Watch Videos on the LWV Pasadena YouTube Channel” (on the left). Responding to numerous requests, we have also provided in this issue of the Voter a list of some of the organizations mentioned by both our speakers. (See “Local Organizations Working on Voter and Youth Engagement.”)
—Katherine Gavzy
