Voting: A Civil Rights War That Is Happening Now

Educate, Organize and Mobilize: On June 6, 2014, at its annual Education Scholarship Event, the North Carolina Legislative Black Caucus Foundation will provide a briefing on the new rules for voting in North Carolina.  These new rules are the product of the Voter Suppression Act of 2013 (A.K.A.) the Voter Information and Verification Act of 2013 passed by the 2013 NC Legislature and signed into law by Governor McCrory.  I presume that the briefing will actually show that voter suppression is so much more than voter ID and that the briefing will help ordinary voters to better recognize multiple voter suppression tactics when they see them.  Education is a critical element in our fight for voting rights and to defeat voter suppression.  For details of their entire event and for registration information, visit www.NCLBCF.org.

On Friday, April 25, 2014 the North Carolina Alliance of Black Elected Officials hosted a panel discussion addressing issues and ideas that are a part of educating and mobilizing voters.  There are many efforts across our state and the nation to remind voters, family and friends of the real dangers of complacency on voting rights.  However, for these and other efforts to bear fruit, our communities must join in and become a part of the solution. 

In the summer of 2014, the NC NAACP State Conference and Youth and College Division will honor the 50th Anniversary of Mississippi Freedom Summer and continue the Forward Together Moral Movement by leading a statewide North Carolina Moral Freedom Summer.  The NC-MFS project encompasses diverse organizing efforts statewide aimed at building a long-term transformative fusion movement in North Carolina. 

The NAACP says that its centerpiece initiative this summer is a deep organizing campaign that places 50 highly-trained Moral Freedom Summer organizers in counties across the state to coordinate long-term, issue-based voter empowerment campaigns and to support indigenously-led work. This Moral Freedom Summer Organizing Fellowship Program will deepen and strengthen the Forward Together Moral Movement across North Carolina.  For additional information and to join the cause, please visit http://moralfreedomsummer-naacpnc.nationbuilder.com/.

Another thing that our readers can do to help in our mobilization for the fight against voter suppression is to email notices of your community events that address voting rights to [email protected].  We will promote your events on Facebook and on our GreaterDiversity.com web site.

Because the May Primaries are over and we’re heading for D-Day in November, I’m going to develop talking points to help inform and educate voting rights advocates and supporters about the truth of voter suppression and to help educate them about the fraudulent issues that the Koch Brothers and other un-American voter suppression advocates are supporting. Also, when we post news articles to our Facebook page, www.facebook.com/votersuppression, many of these articles actually touch on the widespread attacks on voting rights and dispute much of the mis-information being promoted by those leading the war against voting rights.

By reading 2014 articles that discuss state court decisions against voter suppression in Pennsylvania, Arkansas and Wisconsin, all posted on our Facebook page and accessible by an Internet search, individuals can gain a firm grounding in their understanding of the subject of voter suppression.  All of our communities should host meetings to discuss the topic.  Those of us on the front line of this fight can’t win it without strong, consistent community support.    

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Peter Grear, Esq. writes for Greater Diversity News with a primary focus on voter suppression.  To join the campaign to defeat voter suppression please “Like” and follow us at www.facebook.com/votersuppression, “Share” our articles, and your ideas and comments on Facebook or at our website www.GreaterDiversity.com.  Also, to promote the campaign to defeat voter suppression, please ask all of your Facebook “Friends” to follow the above-referenced recommendations. Additionally, please follow us on Twitter at @yourrighttovote: (https://twitter.com/yourrighttovote)