Civic engagement isn’t a once-in-every-four-years event. It’s an ongoing responsibility, one that our Black elders and ancestors fought for with their lives. It’s one of the ways we make our voices heard and effect change in this country… or not. The last four years have been a wake-up call for all the folks who sat out the 2016 elections. Fortunately, the 2020 elections have been a clarion call.
After serving as the Executive Director for the AIDS Project of the East Bay in California for almost five years, I was excited about relocating for my new role as Director of National Programs for the Black AIDS Institute (BAI). I’m an alumnus of both of BAI’s national community organizing programs – Black Treatment Advocates Network (BTAN) and African American HIV University (AAHU). So, this opportunity to help shape those programs, as well as lead new projects focused on biomedical research literacy in our communities, was too good to pass up.
I moved from my hometown of Oakland and landed in Georgia just in time to cast an early vote in the special election to replace Congressman John Lewis. The long lines at Atlanta’s voting stations during primaries were national news. As a Black man who has voted by absentee ballot in California for almost 30 years, I didn’t trust that my mail-in vote wouldn’t be suppressed in the South. So just to be sure, I went to my DeKalb County precinct prepared with a camp chair, umbrella, snacks, water, and a phone charger. But I didn’t need any of it.
My new role as BAI’s Director of National Programs includes supervising our Black Treatment Advocates Network with chapters and affiliates in 32 cities, of which most are in the South. This national network is supported by our Policy and Advocacy Manager based in Atlanta and two National Organizers based in Florida and Tennessee. Leading up to the presidential elections, the organizers collaborated for months with HeadCount.org and VoteTripling.org to make sure that all our BTAN chapters and affiliates were engaged in get out the vote efforts in their communities. It is that kind of behind-the-scenes voter mobilization that often goes unseen and unrecognized.
There are many ways to create community engagement. In addition to leading National Programs at BAI, I also still serve (via Zoom) as an Associate Minister at the Imani Community Church in Oakland. Imani has an extremely active Social Justice Ministry and a strong relationship with Faith In Action East Bay, a group of faith-based community organizers who have been a driving force for systemic change, racial justice, and economic equity in Oakland for more than 40 years. My pastor, Dr. George Cummings, serves as their Executive Director.
After my recent relocation to Atlanta, I found The New Georgia Project – an organization committed to getting Georgians civically engaged. They provided Poll/Precinct Chaplain training in advance of the general election to monitor voting locations and support voters in case they had to wait in long lines. So I voted early again and then spent the second half of Election Day at New Birth Missionary Baptist Church as about 25 people per hour trickled in to cast their ballots in person. There were no lines. There were no protests. There was music, food, and lots of smiling volunteers. And Georgia turned blue!
Now the vote re-counting has finally ended. After flipping Georgia (Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin), over 80 million Americans can take a little time to exhale. But Black Americans can’t afford that luxury. Because we didn’t just start holding our breath four years ago, we’ve been doing it for more than 400 years. Until racism, HIV, COVID, and many other daily disparities stop disproportionately killing Black people, it’s not time for us to exhale. It’s time for us to get back to work.
We can feel good about how we showed up for the last election. But I’m here to remind us that it’s already time to vote again in Georgia. This time it’s for the two open United States Senate seats that will decide the balance of power in Washington, and how much (or how little) the Biden Administration gets done over the next two years. There’s also a special election runoff with early voting happening right now to fill Congressman Lewis’ seat for the lame-duck session. Everyone in the country is watching Georgia’s two Senate runoffs set for January 5th, with early voting starting on December 14th. My people, we need to represent again.
Don’t sleep. Vote.
Reverend Rob Newells is the Director of National Programs at the Black AIDS Institute. In addition to his advocacy and programmatic expertise in HIV/AIDS, he is also a practicing faith leader at the Imani Community Church in Oakland, CA. Rev. Rob has recently moved from Oakland, CA to Atlanta, GA.