As we have reached the home stretch of our Democracy Summer experience, there lingers this sense of “sadness” amidst the enthusiasm and excitement of each day. Now, I placed quotes around sadness because that doesn’t necessarily describe the mood in the air, but it was the closest way to describe the daily joy felt with the thought of the impending departure we will make from the internship resting in the back of our minds. With that being said we were still rolling this past week and we have a busy and productive week ahead of us this week.
On Monday of last week we completed last minute preparations for our “Reconciling the People” Press Conference that was scheduled to take place the next day. We confirmed what order the persons that were speaking would go in and other logistics issues that needed to be properly fleshed out. The next day we were set to hold the press conference at the Charlotte School of Law at 2:00 pm; Robert, Zaina, myself and our Action NC partners Luis and Toya, were very excited for what we were about to do. The purpose of the press conference was to inform people with criminal records, and the general public as a whole, that those with a criminal background have rights that need to be honored and protected. We had Marshville Mayor Frank Deese give his testimony, so to speak, of his journey from being incarcerated for armed robbery to becoming the Mayor of Marshville. Zaina’s and my remarks were centered on the voting rights of those convicted of felonies and misdemeanors since Democracy North Carolina’s focus is on voting rights and empowerment within the state. I mainly alerted people to the numerous myths and falsehoods that circulate in the state of North Carolina about their right to vote such as if you were formerly convicted of a felony you’re are permanently disfranchised. This is not the case in North Carolina and as your right to vote is restored once you have completed parole and are “off paper;” from there all you would need to do is re-register to vote. In addition, those who committed a misdemeanor never forfeited their right to vote. Zaina talked about the statistics about the number of people still disfranchised in North Carolina even with this progressive policy in place.
Here is a portion of our remarks at the press conference:
#NCVotes Post 1 from MEKtext Network on Vimeo.
The press conference went very well, and we stirred that momentum toward our efforts to continuously phone bank and reach out to Charlotte area churches for the “Souls to the Polls” training that we’re holding on July 18th, in conjunction with Shiloh Institutional Baptist Church and Rev. Dr. Thompson. While we were working on that, we continued our weekly tradition of registering new citizens to vote at the Department of Homeland Security building after naturalization ceremonies. I really enjoy seeing new citizens filled with elation once they have finally become United States citizens. I also wish that I could expose more people to these ceremonies because, even though I am aware that immigration is not just about our Hispanic or Latino brothers and sisters, many have been socially conditioned to believe so, and that creates unneeded division. I was bombarded with wide-eyed naturalized citizens looking to register with me as a representative for the League of Women Voters. I was glad to see this enthusiasm and I pray that this fire will continue to burn inside them and not wither under the broken promises that our country makes AT TIMES. I was motivated and my attentions again moved toward turning out our Charlotte area Churches for the “Souls to the Polls” training.
On Friday we put in work. We traveled all over this great city of Charlotte, that I love, visiting over 40 churches, including my own. We wanted to personally invite representatives to attend the training and hand them some information for them to review. We essentially used the whole day to make this effort successful, and it wasn’t just tiresome work; it was genuinely fun. This is the type of work and organizing I love doing because it gets down to the true grassroots where work is done. This is the difference between us and most of our causes and those opposed to them.
I have thoroughly enjoyed this experience and look forward to the last couple of weeks we are here, even Bob (Hall) making us all call 500 people during the week and over the weekend. Haha! We have developed relationships and partnerships that will last for some time to come and contribute to our growth. I thank Democracy North Carolina for this opportunity as it was exactly what I wanted to do this summer and exactly what I needed. I am very happy that I got to contribute to the progress toward a government “of, by, and for the people.”
Stefan Weathers
Charlotte Team
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